What is a gadget cane?

A stick with a concealed function built into the shaft or handle. The archive holds corkscrews, a three-draw telescope, a timber flute, a nut cracker with carved heads, a petrol cigarette lighter and horse measuring sticks. They turn up once in a blue moon and are memorable when they do. A watch-and-opera cane and an automaton monkey head with an opening mouth are among the more unusual recorded.

How long is a typical antique walking stick?

Where a length is stated it clusters tightly at roughly 90-94cm, or about 36 inches. Sixteen titles carry 92cm on its own. The outliers are a 65cm child's cane at one end and a 103cm silver cane at the other.

Which makers should I look for?

No maker or retailer name reaches three dealers across the category, so no firm defines it. The silversmith and retailer names that do appear in titles are single-dealer stock. Identification runs through hallmarks instead. Assay towns and date letters, with London, Birmingham and Exeter marks among those named, carry the weight a maker's name would elsewhere.

Are stick stands part of this category?

Yes. Stand appears in 124 titles, umbrella in 89, and the two words often run together. Cast iron and brass are the common materials, with oak behind them. Forms include demi-lune stands made to sit against a wall, corner stands, coopered barrels and multi-division hall racks. The largest things in the archive are stands rather than sticks.

What materials do the handles and shafts use?

Handles run through silver, plate, gold, horn, ivory, bone and carved wood, with dogs, bulldogs, ducks, eagles, monkeys, hares, snakes, a devil's head, a clenched fist and a top hat among the carved subjects. Shafts go further afield. Shark and marine vertebrae, whalebone and whale tooth, stingray tail and rhinoceros horn all appear, and one stand is made from an elephant foot.

Do these come from outside Britain?

Widely. French is named in 53 titles, and Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Anglo-Indian, Burmese, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, American, African and Zulu all appear. Spanish Toledo turns up on sword-stick blades. A Warsaw-marked Judaica dagger stick and a Mesopotamian silver-topped stick are the rarest single origins recorded.

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Antique Walking Sticks

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A shaft of malacca, ebony, bamboo or blackthorn topped with a silver, horn or carved handle, carried as dress accessory rather than support, and sold here alongside the sword sticks and hall stands that grew up with it.