Antique Silver Hip Flasks
A flattened pocket bottle for spirits, curved to sit against the hip, made to carry a measure discreetly for hunting, shooting, travel and military use.
Antique Silver Hip Flasks
The form settled in the nineteenth century: a flat, curved or kidney-shaped body small enough for a coat or hip pocket, with a screw or bayonet cap and often a beaker that slides over the base and doubles as a cup. Leather and skin coverings were added to protect the body and to deaden shine and rattle in the field.
What you'll meet most is a late-Victorian to George V British flask. Sterling appears in 149 titles, plated in 72, and the reign labels lean heavily Victorian and Edwardian. London, Chester, Sheffield and Birmingham are the assay offices named, with Chester turning up more often than either Sheffield or Birmingham.
Reptile skin is close to a defining feature of the category: crocodile runs through 95 titles and leather through 101, with mock-croc, alligator and a few snakeskin flasks in the mix. Alongside those sit glass-bodied flasks with silver mounts, cut and faceted, and plain silver bodies with engine-turned or embossed surfaces. Art Deco is the one named style with any weight, in 23 titles.
Dealer dates run 1850 to 1960, heaviest in the Victorian years and the 1920s, tailing off through the 1940s. Period labels are used loosely, so a flask called Edwardian can carry a 1913 hallmark. Sizes stretch from 2.75in miniatures to 8in flasks, with half-pint, 16 fl oz and one 1¼ pint capacity stated.
Where The Range Splits
Metal does most of the work. Titles saying sterling or solid silver cluster in the upper half of the range, and plated or silver-mounted ones in the lower half, whatever the covering over them. A plated crocodile flask and a hallmarked crocodile flask can look much alike in a photograph and sit a long way apart in price.
Size pulls the same direction. Large appears in 39 titles against small in 13, and the oversized 6in to 8in pieces, half-pint and larger capacities, and the heavier silver bodies sit at the top, with 2oz miniatures at the other end. Completeness counts too: a fitted cup, detachable, gilt-lined or collapsible, adds to a flask, and cup appears in 70 titles.
Then there's what's on the surface and whose name is on it. Engine turning, gilt, cut glass, embossing, guilloche enamel, tortoiseshell and armorial or crest engraving all lift a flask above a plain body. A named maker or retailer in the title does the same, and regimental, Boer War era and college-marked flasks recur at the margins.
Antique Silver Hip Flasks Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for silver hip flasks, 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.
The most expensive silver hip flask ever sold on Sellingantiques was an Austrian sterling silver and tortoiseshell flask from Vienna, about 1930, sold in January 2019.
James Dixon & Sons·Mappin & Webb
The Antique Silver Hip Flasks Glossary
- Sterling or solid silver
- A hallmarked silver body rather than a plated or mounted one. Just over a quarter of titles say sterling.
- Silver mounted or silver topped
- A glass, leather or horn body with a silver collar, cap or cup, the body itself not being silver.
- Detachable cup
- A beaker that slides over the flask base as a sheath and lifts off to drink from. Sampled versions include gilt-lined and collapsible ones.
- Bayonet top
- A cap that seats and twists into a locking fitting rather than screwing down. Flip tops and hinged lids are the other closures named.
- Engine turned
- A lathe-cut repeating pattern across the silver surface, named in nine titles.
- Assay office
- The town whose mark dates the piece. London, Chester, Sheffield and Birmingham dominate, with single Edinburgh, Glasgow and Exeter examples.
Antique Silver Hip Flasks: Frequently Asked Questions
Are most antique hip flasks solid silver?
No. Sterling appears in 149 titles and solid in 88, so hallmarked bodies are a large share but not the whole category.
The rest are silver plated, or silver mounted: a glass, leather or horn body carrying a silver collar, cap or cup.
Why are so many covered in crocodile?
Skin and leather coverings protected the body underneath and killed the shine and rattle that carried in the field.
Crocodile appears in 95 titles and leather in 101. The samples also turn up mock-croc, alligator and three snakeskin flasks.
What size do they come in?
Stated sizes run from 2.75in and 3in miniatures up to 7in and 8in flasks.
Capacities are quoted less often, but half-pint, 8 fl oz, 16 fl oz and one plated 1¼ pint flask all appear. Where weights are given they range from a 16g funnel-type piece to silver flasks around 300g.
Which period do they mostly date from?
Dealer dates run 1850 to 1960, with the heaviest concentrations Victorian and in the 1920s, then the 1910s, Edwardian years and the 1930s.
A few sampled titles record earlier hallmark years of 1835, 1843 and 1845, and the latest sampled pieces are 1959 and 1960.
Do hip flasks always come with a cup?
Not always. Cup appears in 70 titles, so it's a common fitting rather than a universal one.
The cup usually slips over the base as a sheath. Sampled listings describe detachable, removable, gilt-lined and collapsible versions.
How many turn up for sale each year?
About 55 hip flasks are listed on Sellingantiques in a year, and 61 different dealers have handled them.
So the category sits thinly across a great many stocks rather than with a handful of specialists. Novelty forms surface occasionally, including a silver elephant flask, a silver turtle, a flask-and-cigarette-case combination and a campaign flask fitted with a straw.