Snuff is finely ground tobacco leaf with aromatic additions; in the 18th century rasps such as this in ivory or wood, with a rasp for the tobacco and a hinged receptacle to catch the snuff, were a necessary requirement for the elegant gentleman, as was a finely carved snuff spoon with which to transfer the snuff from snuffbox to the hand.
Two Carlisle-made snuffboxes of copper alloy and wood, designed to restrict the pinch of snuff available to almost nothing as the two fingers used are forced apart as they are withdrawn through the access holes, early 19th century, 69mm diameter
An 18th-century silver-mounted snuffbox with panels of thinly sliced fossilised mammoth tooth, 69mm long
A mid 18th-century English silver and agate snuffbox of cartouche form, 72mm wide
A 19th-century horn box with push-on cover, the escutcheon with maker's mark W.D. & Co, for William Dunningham of Aberdeen, specialists in silver-mounted horn
A late Georgian silver-mounted nut snuff mull, 60mm long
An oak box, with two silver escutcheons, one engraved with a setter dog and "John Robinson, Skinner, Penrith", the other "Presented by James Brogden.... " and dated 1832, 76mm diameter
A papier mâché snuffbox, the push-on cover finely painted with a landscape, circa 1820, 10cm diameter
A mid 19th-century papier mâché snuffbox, the push-on cover finely painted with a bust-length female figure holding an anchor, allegorical of "Hope", 96mm diameter
A late 18th century copper navette-shaped snuffbox bright-cut engraved in the neo-classical style, 65mm long
An early 18th-century small horn mull, the Baroque-style chased silver cover inset with a Scottish pebble of agate with carnelian inclusions, 52mm high
A fine Scottish ram's horn snuff mull the body having three silver escutcheons, two engraved with a Highlander and a thistle, the third having three chains attached, with rake, tapper and a Hanoverian pattern snuff spoon hallmarked Edinburgh, 1722, 98mm high
An early 19th-century horn mull, the cover having silver foliate mounts, centred by a claw-set citrine , 80mm high
A fine George III silver snuffbox of navette form, hallmarked London, 1797, maker George Burrows, with owl crest and inscribed
"THE GIFT OF THE ANCIENT CORPORATION OF CANN WOOD TO J DISTING, ESQ, 11 OCT, 1797" and "PRESENTED BY C. STANLEY TO MR PENGELLY AS A MARK OF REGARD FOR HIS ATTENTION IN THE HOURS OF AFFLICTION",
within bright-cut engraved borders, 87mm long
A fine 18th-century gold-mounted mother-of-pearl snuffbox of truncated oval form, the hinged cover inset with a tortoiseshell panel of gold and silver piqué posé flowers, 65mm long
An early 19th-century brass "Prescott" snuffbox with three-dial combination lock, 80mm long
Two views of an early 18th-century ivory snuff rasp carved in relief with a peasant playing a "saltbox" or hurdy-gurdy, the rasped snuff passing through an internal channel into the hinged snuff compartment, German or French, 180mm high
A leaf-carved bone snuff spoon, early
19th century, 85mm
A George III silver-gilt snuffbox of rectangular form with rounded corners, having engine-turned decoration within cast foliate borders, hallmarked Birmingham, 1818, maker Joseph Willmore, 81mm long, 108.4gm
An early 18th-century silver-mounted bone snuff mull of oval inverted balustroid design, with thistle-form hinge mount and escutcheon engraved with ownership cypher, I*M in cursive upper case
A papier mâché snuffbox, the push-on cover finely painted to simulate tortoiseshell and jewelled borders, circa 1820, 79mm diameter
An early 19th-century Napoleonic prisoner-of-war carved coquilla-nut snuffbox in the form of a French Revolutionary, with "stocking" cap, 75mm high
A papier mâché snuffbox, the push-on cover finely painted witha gundog raising a pheasant, circa 1820, 60mm diameter
A late Georgian Scottish silver-mounted snuff mull, made from half a deer's hoof carved in relief with a depiction from Burns's "Cutty Sark", the silver cover inset with a heliotrope seal engraved with a running fox and legend "TALLY HO", 80mm long
A late Georgian Scottish silver-mounted snuff mull, made from half a deer's hoof, 60mm long
An early 19th-century Scottish horn snuff mull, the cover with silver hinge in the form of a crest of a phoenix rising from the flames, under a banner engraved "VIVE UT POSTEA VIVAS", ("Live that you may live hereafter"), 90mm overall
A 20th-century burr yewwood snuffboxof fine quality, with ebony and holly chequered stringing,80mm long
An early 19th-century Mauchline sycamore snuffbox painted in black with the triskeles within a garter with the motto"STABIT QUO CUNQUE INCERTS", 77mm long
A superb early 19th-century Mauchline sycamore snuffbox painted in black with a Highlander of the 42nd Foot, "The Black Watch", bordered by stylised seaweed, 77mm long
An early 19th-century Mauchline sycamore snuffbox painted in black with "The cottagers' Saturday Night", 78mm long
An early 19th-century Mauchline sycamore snuffbox painted in black with a satirical scene from Burns's "John Anderson my Jo", 77mm long
An early 19th-century Mauchline sycamore snuffbox painted in polychrome with a cleric and his woman seated facing, a naked Cupid seated between, entitled "Surely Love is between us", 73mm long
A William IV silver snuffbox, engine-turned with cast foliate borders, Birmingham, 1834, makerThomas Shaw, 76mm long
An early 19th-century bone-inlaid treen snuffbox in the form of a sabot, with heart as a love token, 107mm long
A fine late 18th-century French ivory snuffbox, the push-on cover inset with a blue-ground verre-eglomisé panel depicting a lady mourning at a tomb, perhaps a victim of the Revolution's guillotine, 83mm diameter
A 19th-century snuffbox formed of the two skull attachments of a stag's antlers, 60mm diameter
A George III cowhorn snuffbox engraved "JOHN BRAITHWAITE / 1793", 118mm long.
(The Rev John Braithwaite was a Vicar of Whitehaven and the subject of a biography written by Robert Dickinson in 1825
A George III silver-mounted cowrie-shell snuffbox, London, 1810, makers Phipps and Robinson, 69mm long
A Georgian mahogany snuffbox of table proportions, carved as a gentleman's buckled shoe, with sliding cover, 135mm long
A 19th-century burrwood snuffbox, the centre inset with a small black horn roundel, 46mm diameter
A superb yewwood circular table snuffbox of turned design, in its original red card box with interior retailer's paper label of BRAITHWAITE & JONES (of 3 Cockspur Street, London), the push-on lid inset with a circular silver medallion within a cast foliate border, engraved: "In Rememberance / & Presented to /
M
RS
BETTY TAYLOR / born Winder, in Wyersdale, / by her affectionate Cousin / JOHN SIMPSON / so named after her F / who was his dear Mother's Brother / Hackney Mid / 1836", the interior lid having a circular escutcheon engraved "Yew Wood / Lyndeth Crag", the snuffbox 95mm diameter
An early 19th-century pressed wood snuffbox, the cover depicting Chelsea and Greewich pensioners and commemorating the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo, signed on a chair-leg, "WESTFIELD", 72mm diameter
An early 18th-century oval blonde horn snuffbox with push-on tortoiseshell cover, having a silver piqué scene depicting an angler, 79mm long
A rare Scotttish leather snuff mull of cylindrical form with silver hinge and escutcheon with the crest of the McDowall family and motto " VINCERE VEL MORE", impressed maker's mark, "WILSON" inside the lid
An early 19th-century horn snuff mull or priming flask,, the cover having silver mounts, with swivel dispenser, 110mm overall
Acircular burr-walnut snuffbox, the push-on heat-pressed cover depicting a farmer with cattle and goats, lined with tortoiseshell, French, early 19th century
A small Georgian Sheffield-plated snuffbox with silver-wire-inlaid scrollwork to the tortoiseshell push-on cover, 37mm diameter
An early Victorian black horn and tortoishell snuffbox, with star inlay within a linear border inset with pewter
piqué, 100mm long
An exceptional George II Scottish silver-mounted ivory snuff mull with initials KM, a heart between, dated 1750
An early 19th-century horn snuff mull having silver mounts, inscribed "Who is no a friend at a pinch / is no worth a snuff", 65mm long
