How many come up for sale each year?

Around fifty reach the market on Sellingantiques in a year, listed by sixty-six different dealers over the life of the archive. No single stockholder defines the category, so the mix of timbers and periods on offer shifts with whoever is listing.

Why do so many say they dismantle?

These are large bedroom pieces, and a great many were built to come apart into cornice, sides, back and base so they could be carried up a staircase. Fifty-nine titles advertise that the wardrobe dismantles. Another thirteen use the words knockdown or flat pack for the same thing. It is a selling point almost unique to big bedroom furniture.

Which timber is most common?

Mahogany, at a third of all titles. Pine comes next at roughly a quarter, then walnut and then oak. Between them those four cover the great bulk of the archive. The unusual timbers appear once or twice each: satin birch, pollard oak, birds eye maple, satinwood, rosewood, sycamore, fruitwood.

Are French armoires often listed?

They are the smallest group. Fewer than one title in twenty says French, and armoire appears in twenty-three. Single listings name Alsace, Burgundy, Flanders, Denmark and the Channel Islands. The largest of them, in carved oak and rosewood, are described as being of grand proportions and sit at the top of the range.

Do these ever sell as matching pairs?

Once in a blue moon. A handful of titles offer two wardrobes together, in burr walnut, in carved oak and in knockdown pine. One burr walnut wardrobe came with its matching dressing table and carried the name of the country house it came from.

What does compactum mean on a listing?

It describes a fitted interior: shelves, drawers and slides as well as hanging space, rather than an open void with a rail. Nine titles use it, and fitted appears in thirteen more. Both cluster in the dearer half of the archive, along with gents' compactums and combination wardrobes.

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Antique Double Wardrobes

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A two-door hanging wardrobe, roughly five to seven feet wide, made in Britain and on the Continent from the Georgian period to the 1930s as the standard place to keep clothes in a bedroom.