Hello,
I would like to know where it is possible to find some beautiful stamps in London. I found this address: 1 Broadway, London, SW1H 0AX , but it seems it is to buy commemorative stamps, and I don’t know if I can use them.
Also, what is the price? On the official website of the Royal Mail, it says 1.6 £, but when my cousin bought five in a museum in Edimburgh, she had to pay 11£…
Thanks a lot for your help!
Make sure the stamps you buy are Royal Mail ones (the best way to verify this is buying them from a Post Office). These are their prices:
International Airmail postage is £1.85 anywhere in the world.
International Economy is available outside of Europe for £1.60. You cannot use an airmail sticker if you use this rate.
You can either use one stamp or several smaller value stamps to make up the amount. If you want to do this, for reference, a first class stamp costs 95p and a second class stamp is 68p. So you could use 2x first class stamps for airmail or 1x first and 1x second for international economy. Although in both instances you’ll be slightly overpaying.
Beware there is also another company called Universal Mail which sell their stamps at tourist attractions (often with a picture of the tourist attraction on it). These can only be used for international mail and have very bad reviews. Lots of people say their cards travel for ages and some never arrive. They are a similar price to Royal Mail stamps too, so it’s better to stick with official Royal Mail ones.
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Wow, thank you so much for explaining! It’s very clear!
And by the way, Happy New Year 
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I second everything that @geo_ has said, and add the Post Office branch finder, to help you find Post Office branches near where you’re visiting: Branch Finder | Post Office
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And are there some specific post offices which are selling beautiful stamps? Because usually the only one I find are the classical ones which aren’t actually very pretty if I may say so…
Sadly Post Offices in London can be disappointing for special themed stamps.
My two recommendations in the city are:
City of London Post Office in Eastcheap near London Bridge. 12 Eastcheap, EC3M 1AJ
Which has a dedicated Philatelic counter.
The other is the Postal Museum in Farringdon
Phoenix Place WC1X 0DA
They don’t sell stamps per say, but have stamp vending machines which (personally) have nice pictorial stamp labels.
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Perfect!
I’ll have a look!
Thank you so much!
I was in the city last week and did at little reconnaissance for special stamps at London Post Offices, and this is what I found.
City of London Post Office had the healthiest haul of stamps having many sheets of at least seven months worth of stamps and miniature sheets.
The next best was Broadway Post Office in Victoria (the one mentioned in your first post) had the same amount of recent stamps and miniature sheets.
Aldwych Post Office near Charring Cross was the disappointing one, only having the latest Iron Maiden Stamps, however they where the first post office to have the PHQ postcards.
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Tate Modern, British Museum and National gallery have special sticker stamps. They are for postcards only, do no envelopes. I’m sure other places sell them too
I believe @SandyFyfe is referring to the dreaded Universal Mail stamps available at tourist locations:, they are a private postal company which can only send mail to addresses abroad and has a really bad track record for long delivery times and lost cards. Best avoided at all costs.
See also:
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Universal Mail stamps tend to get a bad rap, in my humble opinion, and their reputation for delivery times is not as bad as some say. I have used them off and on for a number of years. Yes, some do take longer to arrive since they require additional processing, but never have any cards come up as lost. For postcards and the like, there are a few tourist areas in Europe that offer stamps similar to those sold by Universal Mail. I have several in my collection.
It’s actually quite interesting because I didn’t know Universal Mail at all; my cousin, who is Taiwanese but is currently studying in the United Kingdom, decided to send me a postcard in December (I was in France). She was in Edimburgh and told me she bought the stamps in a museum, and realized only after paying that they were sold to an expansive price (I don’t remember exactly how much, but official stamps were cheaper). We waited, waited, and waited, and actually it reached its destination last week, on the 28th of February. I thought it was because of the different strikes in the UK, but in the same time I received other postcards / letters sent from the UK and which took “only” a few weeks to cross the Channel.
As you wrote in your message that there were specific Universal Mail stamps, I checked, and indeed, these were Universal Mail stamps.
So, to conclude, let say that it’s better not to use Universal Mail, as it seems their delivery time is far from being perfect
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