Antique boxes guide

How to Date an Antique Jewellery Box: The Jeweller's Imprint Register

To date an antique jewellery box, read the printed lid. It names the retailer, not the maker, and its address, royal warrant wording and company style each set a date window: “By appointment to the King” means 1901 to 1952, and W.1 or E.C.4 means 1917 or later. Our register dates 33 jewellers' lids.

Reviewed by Faustas Svencionis, Mozeris Fine Antiques, since 2015 · Updated October 2026

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The name on the lid is the retailer, not the maker

The gilt or printed name inside an antique jewellery box is the shop that sold the jewel. Specialist case makers made the boxes, and the retailer's name, address and warrants were blocked onto the silk or satin lid. The jewel itself may come from a workshop the retailer never named.

That makes the lid a dating tool. Firms moved, changed their names, became limited companies and gained or lost royal warrants, and each change shows on the boxes they ordered. Read the lid as printed, word for word, before anything else. For the marks on the jewel, see our guide to hallmarks and makers' marks and to dating antique jewellery.

Every lid in this guide was read at full resolution from a box we have handled. Our stock of antique and vintage boxes is on the antique boxes page.

Lid clues that date a box: the decoder

Five things on a lid set a date: the royal warrant wording, the company style, the address and postal district, a telephone number and anything else that existed only for a time. Each gives a window; put them together and the window narrows.

Postal districts and postcodes

London was divided into lettered postal districts such as E.C. and W. in 1857 and 1858. Numbers were added in 1917, so a lid reading W.1 or E.C.3 was printed in 1917 or later.

Full postcodes such as W1X 2HP came with the national scheme, adopted in stages between 1959 and 1974.

Successor to, and late

Charles Frederick Hancock left the partnership that had traded as Storr & Mortimer, by then Hunt & Roskell, in January 1849 and opened at 39 Bruton Street. His lids name him as their successor and carry the Council Medal won at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Hancock left Bruton Street in 1917, which closes the window.

Ltd, and Est.

Limited liability was opened to most trading firms by the Acts of 1855 and 1856 and consolidated in the Companies Act 1862. A firm added Ltd when it incorporated, so Ltd on a lid means the box is no earlier than that firm's own date.

Reid & Sons of Newcastle became a limited company in 1930. Their lid also reads Est. 1778: a founding date the firm printed, not the date of the box.

Telephone numbers and renumbered streets. London telephone numbers used three-letter exchange names from 1927 until all-figure numbers began in 1966, so the form of a number on a lid places it in one era or the other. Street numbers can mislead: London's councils issued orders renaming and renumbering streets, so two numbers for one firm may be a renumbering rather than a move. Check a trade directory before you read it as a new address.

The Jeweller's Imprint Register

The register lists 33 jewellers' lids, each with the wording as printed, a date window and the source for that window. Every row is a box we have handled; most are in stock and link to the listing.

How we built it: we read the lids of more than 300 boxes listed by Mozeris Fine Antiques in 2025 and 2026, then kept only the jewellers whose trading dates, addresses or company style we could confirm from a published source: firm histories, Grace's Guide, museum and archive records, newspapers and, where nothing better exists, Wikipedia. Lids we could not date are left out. A window is the period in which that exact wording could be printed; the box can be used later. Compiled by Mozeris Fine Antiques, October 2026. Corrections with a source are welcome at info@mozerisfineantiques.com.

Royal warrant wording on boxes: Queen, King and the late King

“By appointment to the King” dates a British lid to 1901 to 1952; “the Queen” needs the address to date it, because Queens consort were also styled the Queen. A warrant names the royal who granted it, so the wording follows the throne.

The King, 1901 to 1952

Four Kings reigned in turn from Edward VII's accession in 1901 to the death of George VI in 1952. The Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company printed By Appointment to the King on its lids until it merged with Garrard in 1952.

The late King, and the Queen Mother

When a grantor dies the warrant lapses, and the holder may go on using the arms for a limited time, today usually up to two years. That is why lids read By Appointment to the late King George V: Hunt & Roskell's box was printed after his death in January 1936.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother granted her own warrants. Hancocks received one in 1962 and printed it on lids at 1 Burlington Gardens, where the firm traded from 1970 to 1998.

Foreign courts worked the same way. J.H. Werner of Berlin printed his appointment as court jeweller to the Kaiser and Kaiserin, titles that existed only from 1871 to 1918.

What the inside tells you: the fitting chart

The velvet fitting in the base shows what the box was made for: a slot for a ring, a well for a pendant or watch, a pad for a brooch, a tray for a suite and a long bed for a bracelet. The lid is lined in silk or satin, which takes the printed name; the base is velvet, which holds the jewel.

Ring slots and wells

A ring box has a velvet pad cut with a single slot; the shank drops in and the head sits upright. Twin slots take a pair of earrings or cufflinks. A round well takes a pendant, a coin or a watch.

Browse our ring boxes, brooch boxes and cufflink and dress set boxes.

Suite trays

A suite or parure box is moulded for several jewels at once: a curved channel for a necklace, posts or slots for earrings and a pad for a brooch. The shapes tell you which pieces belonged together.

Long beds

A long box with a raised, curved bed holds a bracelet or a wristwatch open. Necklace boxes are wider and often flat. See our bracelet boxes, necklace boxes and watch boxes.

Catches

Most boxes close with a sprung push button at the front; others use a small hook and eye at the side. Check that the catch holds and the hinge is sound before a box goes back into use.

For the fastenings on the jewels themselves, see our guide to antique necklace clasps.

Coverings: leather, shagreen, velvet and ivory-coloured cases

Most retailers' boxes are covered in grained leather or leather paper with a gilt tooled line border; others are velvet, suede, shagreen-pattern paper or a moulded ivory-coloured case. The covering helps match a box to a house, but it is the lid that dates it.

• Leather and leather paper. Red, green, navy and brown are the usual colours, often with a gilt border round the lid.
• Shagreen pattern. Paper or leather embossed to look like sharkskin, as on our J.W. Benson ring box MFA-B-188.
• Moulded ivory-coloured cases. Small rounded cubes with a cream push button, such as the Benson Royal Exchange box MFA-B-262.
• Velvet and suede. Crushed velvet on the Wartski box of the 1970s, suede on many later designer boxes.

Designer house boxes: Cartier, Tiffany, Hancocks, Asprey and Garrard

A great house's box is dated the same way: by the addresses and wording on the lid. These are the house histories behind the rows in the register.

• Cartier. A lid naming New York 653 Fifth Avenue, Paris 13 Rue de la Paix and London 175 New Bond Street dates from 1917 or later, when the New York branch moved into 653 Fifth Avenue. Must de Cartier boxes date from 1973 on. More in our Cartier history and Must de Cartier guide.
• Hancocks. C.F. Hancock opened at 39 Bruton Street on 1 January 1849, moved in 1917, traded at Burlington Gardens from 1970 and in Burlington Arcade from 1998.
• Asprey. The Fenchurch Street lid, with its E.C.3 district, is from 1917 or later. Read about the house in our Asprey jewellery guide.
• Garrard. R. & S. Garrard & Co. of the Haymarket became Garrard & Co Ltd in 1909, moved to Albemarle Street in 1911 and to 112 Regent Street after merging with the Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company in 1952.
• Tiffany & Co. Tiffany boxes need the same reading of the lid; histories give different dates for the early London branch, so we leave them out of the register. See our Tiffany history.

Does a box matter when you sell a jewel?

An original fitted box that matches the jewel adds evidence: it names the retailer and dates the sale, and buyers of signed and designer pieces look for it. A box that fits the jewel exactly, with a legible lid and sound hinge and catch, is the best kind.

Value still rests on the jewel: its maker, metal, stones, condition and history. Keep the box with the piece, do not clean or repair the silk, and send photos of both. Our guides to signed jewellery and designer jewellery authentication explain what we check.

Ways to sell

• Mayfair, 47 Maddox Street (by appointment)
• Braintree, Essex (by appointment)
• Royal Mail Special Delivery
• Free FedEx collection

We buy directly, with payment once you accept our offer, and we can also sell for you by consignment or at auction. Mozeris has traded since 2015 and is five-star rated: read our Google reviews.

More on selling: antique jewellery, Victorian jewellery, Edwardian jewellery, designer jewellery, Cartier and Tiffany & Co.. Inherited a jewel in its box? Our inherited jewellery guide explains what to do first.

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