What woods was treen made from?

Sycamore leads, named in 100 titles, and it's the wood behind most dairy and food wares because it's pale and close-grained. Fruitwood follows in 81 titles, a catch-all for cherry, apple, pear and similar. Boxwood appears in 53 titles and concentrates in small tools and pocket pieces. Lignum vitae, in 34, is the dense import used for mortars, mallets and smoothers. Mahogany, beech and oak fill out the rest.

How old is most antique treen?

The 19th century dominates. It's the dated field on 729 listings, with 123 given as 18th century, 98 as Georgian and 37 as Victorian, labels that overlap the same span. Seventeenth-century pieces are scarce in the record, at 10 listings. The dated field across the category runs from 1680 to 1950.

Why are knitting sheaths so common?

They were personal objects, made and kept in numbers, and 55 titles name one. Forms include goosewing, gull-wing, fish and shoe. Decoration varies from punchwork to bone and brass inlay, and some carry a name and a year cut by the owner.

What counts as Welsh or Scottish treen?

Welsh appears in 60 titles and Scottish in 47, the strongest regional voices after plain English. Wales brings lovespoons, spoon racks, cawl bowls and dairy bowls. Scotland brings quaichs, in 23 titles, along with bickers, luggies and powder horns.

Are any treen makers named?

No. A pass for maker names across 1,171 listings returned nothing, so treen is described by wood, form, region and date instead of by workshop. What stands in for a maker's mark is an owner's inscription. The word dated appears in 41 titles, with initials and years from the 1740s through to 1909.

How much treen comes up for sale?

Around 130 pieces a year come to market on Sellingantiques, listed by 91 different dealers. That spread tells you something. It's a category almost every general dealer touches rather than a specialist corner.

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Antique Treen

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Treen is the collective name for small wooden things made for the house, the dairy, the trade bench and the pocket: bowls, salts, moulds, knitting sheaths, mortars and the rest.