Antique Pans between £0 and £0
Open copper and brass vessels from British and French kitchens and hearths, made for boiling preserves, setting cream, cooking over an open fire, and warming beds.
What Are Antique Pans?
Copper dominates, at three titles in four on Sellingantiques, with brass a clear second and smaller numbers in bronze, iron and one piece of English pewter. Beaten copper and cast brass were the standard cooking, dairy and preserving vessels of British and French kitchens from at least the 17th century, made in graduated sizes for open-fire and later range cooking.
The piece you're most likely to meet is a single large copper pan of 19th-century date. "Large" and "Victorian" each appear in around three titles in ten. The commonest named type is the jam or preserving pan, usually two-handled, with the long-handled warming pan close behind: a covered pan filled with embers and passed between bedsheets before houses were heated.
Beyond those two, dairy cream setting pans turn up throughout in both Victorian and Georgian form, and graduated sets of saucepans appear as runs of four, five, nine and ten. The heading also gathers pan stands, chestnut roasters, a fish kettle, a trivet, and, once in a blue moon, a bronze Grand Tour figure of the god Pan.
Dating is mostly loose rather than exact. "19th Century", "Victorian" and "1800s" between them outnumber every dated decade combined, and the dated field runs from 1750 to 1930. "George III" and "Georgian" appear in a good number of titles, and a handful of samples go earlier still: two 17th-century iron-and-brass warming pans with engraved handles, and a small bronze posnet catalogued as medieval. Titles and dated fields sometimes disagree.
Where The Range Splits
The single biggest divide is one pan against a matched set. Every one of the highest-priced samples is a set: runs of five, nine and ten matched Victorian copper pans, and repeated sets of four. Single pans, however good, cluster far below them.
Then size and weight. "Large" runs through the titles and "heavy" or "heavy gauge" through the dearer ones, and the top of the range is architectural rather than domestic: a country-house pan measured at 61cm round, a brass preserve pan at 39cm, a copper cauldron with a wrought-iron swing handle. Thin small copper pans sit at the bottom.
Metal and date do the rest. Cast bronze preserving and roasting pans and cast bronze cream pans appear repeatedly in the upper band, and early work rises: 17th-century warming pans, an 18th-century copper frying pan, the many George III copper pans. Pans carrying a maker's stamp also sit in the upper half.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for pans between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
About twenty-four antique pans are listed on Sellingantiques each year, and sixty-eight different dealers have listed one since 2008.
The Antique Pans between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Jam or preserving pan
- Wide open pan, usually two-handled, for boiling fruit and sugar. The commonest named type in this category.
- Cream setting pan
- Shallow dairy pan in which milk was left standing for the cream to rise to the top.
- Warming pan
- Covered pan on a long handle, filled with embers and passed between bedsheets.
- Graduated set
- A run of matched pans in ascending sizes. Sets of four to ten appear on Sellingantiques.
- Tin lined
- Interior tinning over the copper, the standard finish for a cooking surface.
- Posnet or skillet
- Small footed cooking pot with a cast handle, made for use down on the hearth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What metal are most antique pans?
Copper, in three titles out of four. Brass is a clear second, with smaller numbers in bronze and iron and one sample in English pewter.
Cast bronze and heavy brass tend to sit in the upper band of the range, while plain small copper pans sit at the lower end.
Which type of pan turns up most often?
The jam or preserving pan, typically two-handled and wide-mouthed for boiling fruit and sugar. Copper is the usual metal for it.
Warming pans come next, long-handled and covered, in copper, brass and iron. Cream setting pans from the dairy are a third recurring group.
How old are they usually?
The dated field spans 1750 to 1930, and 19th-century and Victorian labels carry the bulk of the category. The Georgian end is well represented too, with George III appearing across a good many titles.
A few go earlier: two iron-and-brass warming pans with engraved handles put at around 1640 to 1660, and a bronze posnet catalogued as medieval.
Are sets of pans different from single ones?
Very. Matched graduated sets are the small group that carries the ceiling of the range, and single pans cluster a long way below.
Runs of five, nine and ten Victorian copper pans have passed through, and sets of four recur. Some of the French groups come as graduated sets of copper and iron.
Do any come from outside Britain?
France is the only origin that recurs, in a modest number of titles, mostly graduated sets of copper and iron pans and one daubiere. One French group sits at the late edge of the period, in the 1920s to 1930s.
A Welsh brass preserving pan and a Scottish iron pan stand are the only other named regions.
Why do bronze figures appear under pans?
Because the word covers the god as well as the vessel. Four bronze Grand Tour figures of Pan have gone through this heading.
The classification has also swept in adjacent metalware: pan stands, chestnut roasters, a fish kettle, a trivet, a jelly mould and a set of shopkeeper's scales.