A Scottish snuff container, typically made from horn with a hinged silver lid. Some are pocket-sized, others are table pieces on a scale nothing else in the category matches. The heaviest object in the Sellingantiques archive for this category is one of them: a Scottish horn table mull with agate mounts, weighing 1.4kg.

Why are so many boxes marked Birmingham?

Birmingham is named in 50 titles, against 36 for London and 17 for Chester. That weighting is unusual for silver generally. It reflects where the trade sat. A large share of small boxes of this kind were Birmingham-made, and the town's mark follows them through the Georgian and Victorian runs.

Are snuff boxes and pill boxes the same thing?

In the listings they often are. Dealers catalogue the same object under two or three names at once: 61 titles say pill, 36 say trinket, 21 say vinaigrette and 21 say tobacco. A vinaigrette is a distinct form, with a pierced inner grille that held a scented sponge. Pill and trinket, by contrast, describe use rather than construction, and small hinged silver boxes take all three labels.

How old are most of these boxes?

The dated field runs from 1700 to 1960. Georgian and Victorian pieces together account for most of the stock that carries a date. Where titles give an actual year, they cluster in two bands: 1780 to 1860, and 1890 to 1930. Both ends are thin, with only a handful reaching back to around 1710 to 1750 and a few carrying mid-20th-century hallmarks such as 1946, 1964 and 1966. Many period labels are buckets rather than readings, so "19th Century" or "Georgian" in a listing means a range.

Do novelty shapes come up?

Once in a blue moon, and almost never twice. A snail, a fox head, a recumbent cow, a cockerel, a French bulldog, a Dutch clog, a Brazil nut, a terrapin and a roulette wheel each appear a single time in the archive. The largest measurement recorded anywhere in the category is an 8.75-inch pheasant-shaped snuff bottle.

How often do silver snuff boxes come up for sale?

About 73 come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, listed by 62 different dealers. That makes this one of the most widely stocked small-silver categories on the site, so the range on offer at any moment is broad rather than narrow.

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Antique Silver Snuff Boxes

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Small hinged-lid silver boxes made to keep a personal supply of powdered snuff dry, along with the larger flat table boxes that sat out after dinner and were passed round.