Stop stealing the UK's postboxes (and making them into mailboxes, too)!!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

From today's UK Daily Telegraph

 

Postboxes stolen and sold on eBay for thousands

Britains world-famous red Victorian postboxes are being stolen by criminals who sell them abroad for thousands of pounds on auction site eBay

 

 

The metal boxes are being ripped from lampposts and telegraph poles all over the UK while others have been chiselled out of brick walls.

In some cases, entire pillar boxes have been uprooted from the ground. Police believe cars or trucks have been used to drag them from their foundations.

Many antique boxes are being sold over the internet as souvenirs to collectors abroad, especially in the US. Royal Mail has been hit by a wave of thefts, especially in rural areas, in recent months.

One insider said: "This is not an opportunist thing people do on the way home from the pub. You would need heavy cutting equipment to take these boxes away."

Postbox prices have risen in recent years after Royal Mail stopped auctioning off old stock in 2003.

 

Experts say boxes dating back to Queen Victorias reign and bearing the VR mark can fetch up to £5,000 in America. George V boxes dating back to 1910 are worth around £1,000 while more modern ones can go for hundreds of pounds.

Royal Mail chiefs originally thought thieves wanted the scrap metal but say any scrap yard which is legitimate is not going to want the distinctive boxes.

Now they say that if the boxes are dated pre-Elizabeth II, they could be valuable and may have been taken to be sold on eBay or on a collectors site.

Crooks stole 10 boxes from three villages near Hythe, Kent, in one recent incident. Other thefts have been reported in Sussex, Lincolnshire, Cornwall and Anglesey, North Wales. Many end up on eBay where dozens were being advertised last week.

Royal Mail said: These old boxes are of great historical interest and we are keen to get them back. We always try to replace stolen boxes.

 

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

'Glad I'm just a dirty ol' yellow Greek postbox.

No one wants to steal me.

That is sad about the red ol' Brit boxes...

'hope them thar Yankees return them back to england were they belong!

 

 

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Hi! I'm not sure how much that graffiti-ed Greek post box would fetch on e-bay -- about 2 drachmas? I thought Katerina was more into sandpo than postboxhoho

Regards, Hilton