What is the difference between a sauce and gravy boat?

Nothing. Dealers use the two words for the same object, a lipped oval vessel with a handle for pouring at table. "Sauce" is much the commoner word in titles on Sellingantiques, with "gravy" a distant second and "sauceboat" and "sauce jug" also in use.

How old are most silver sauce boats?

The dealer-supplied dates span 1750 to 1960, and 192 of the 314 listings carry a clean year. The 1930s is the largest single band, followed by Edwardian, the 1910s and the 1920s. Georgian examples exist, including a 1750-dated George II boat and a 1753 London pair, but they're a minority. Interwar and Edwardian material dominates.

Are pairs more sought after than singles?

Pairs appear in about a quarter of titles, so singles and pairs come to market in roughly equal measure once you count each boat. Matched pairs cluster in the upper half of the range. The top is almost entirely pairs, 18th-century dates, or figural and naturalistic modelling.

Why is Chester mentioned so often?

Chester is named in around one title in sixteen, ahead of Sheffield, London and Birmingham. That's conspicuous prominence for an assay office that closed in 1962. The town named in a title is simply the office that marked the piece.

What is a pap boat for?

It's a small shallow bowl with a pouring lip and no handle, used for feeding infants and invalids. About one title in twenty is a pap boat. They're small and light. One sampled Georgian example weighed seven grams, the lightest thing in the category.

Do Viking longship dishes belong in this category?

They turn up repeatedly on Sellingantiques, mostly Norwegian and dated around 1890 to 1950, including 830-standard and enamelled pieces. They're the one consistently foreign strand in an otherwise British category, sitting alongside rowing boats, yachts, canoe pin cushions and boat-race trophies.

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Antique Silver Boats

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Nearly all of these are sauce boats: small lipped vessels with a scroll handle, standing on three feet or a pedestal foot, made to pour gravy and sauces at table.