What is the most common type of silver jug?

The small English sterling cream or milk jug. About a third of titles on Sellingantiques are cream jugs, and Victorian examples make up the largest group within that. Claret jugs come next at roughly a quarter of the titles, which is why the category holds two objects of quite different size and purpose.

Are claret jugs solid silver?

Usually only in part. The body is cut glass or crystal, with the silver or plated work confined to the collar, lid, spout and handle. Plated mounts are common, appearing in a good number of claret jug titles. Solid-silver mounted jugs and ewers sit higher in the sampled range than plated ones.

How old are the jugs listed here?

The dealer-entered dates run from 1750 to 1960. Victorian is the largest single group, followed by Georgian and Edwardian, with the 1900s, 1890s and 1910s all well represented. Sampled titles quote assay years as early as 1744 and 1748 and as late as 1968. Fewer than half the listings carry a clean year, so much of the record reads simply as Georgian, Victorian, Regency or 19th Century.

Why do titles quote a weight in grams?

Because weight is a rough guide to scale and substance in solid silver, and dealers put it in the title. Cream jugs are quoted from 50g and 66g upward. At the heavy end the archive holds a 740g water jug, a 688g coffee pot and a flagon with a silver mount at 970g. Sauce boats around 228g sit in between.

Do novelty forms turn up in this category?

They do, but sparingly. Cow creamers, Mr Punch and Toby jugs, a serpent-handle jug, thistle-form pitchers and Guernsey and Jersey milk-can forms each appear once or twice across the whole archive. Figural and cased work of this sort sits well above plain cream jugs in the range.

Is non-British silver found among these jugs?

Yes, though thinly. Norwegian 830, German and Hanau, Swiss 800, Russian, Swedish, Chinese export, Anglo-Indian, French, Italian 800 and American pieces all appear, mostly singly. The highest-priced piece in the archive is a Japanese silver and cloisonné enamel claret jug, an outlier with no companion in the samples.

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Antique Silver Jugs

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Silver jugs covered the table from the eighteenth century on: small sterling jugs for cream and milk beside the tea things, and glass-bodied claret jugs with silver mounts for pouring wine.