Charles III boxes
Queen Elizabeth II enjoyed the longest reign of any monarch in British history (70 years and 214 days) and, therefore, the longest of any monarch during the post box era. Naturally, therefore, there are more EiiR and Scottish Crown boxes out there than any other reign. Her son, Charles III, was already 73 years old when he acceded to the British throne. This is therefore likely to be a modest length reign, although, of course, we wish him well in that respect.
There was a considerable delay between accession on 8th September 2022 and the installation of the first CiiiR badged post box at Cambourne, Cambridgeshire on 12th July 2024. This near-two year gap is unprecedented in post box history so far. There was also a delay in the preparation of the new monarch’s royal cipher which contributed to the delay. The Tudor Crown (used by all Kings in the post box era) was chosen by King Charles to surmount the entwined CiiiR lettering in a vertical format. This actually makes it very difficult to use for some applications compared to the essentially linear cipher of his late mother. Compromises have had to be made – especially on lamp letter boxes – where the physical structure precludes the use of vertically-orientated ciphers.
In addition, the King expressed a wish to continue using the Scottish Crown – based on the St Andrew’s Crown in the Honours of Scotland – for all new official property in Scotland. He could actually have legitimately used the CiiiR cipher without upsetting the Lord Lyon (Scotland’s lead on all heraldic matters) as he is indeed the third monarch named Charles to reign over Scotland. The late Queen, of course, was the first Elizabeth to reign over Scotland following the Act of Union and so could not use the EiiR cipher in that country – hence the deployment of the neutral Scottish Crown instead.
The first box to be installed was a sheet steel powder-coated pillar box with a very crude and technically incorrect CiiiR cipher – the crown being too large in proportion to the lettering. This has now been corrected on subsequent CiiiR boxes. Next up was the ubiquitous powder-coated steel lamp box designed by RoMEC but manufactured by WEC Group. These began to appear from March 2024 and are continuing to be installed nationwide. The very latest addition is the all-new solar-powered Parcel Combination box designed to accept both letters and parcels. The first of these was installed in Northern Ireland, sited outside Ulster University’s Birley Building in Belfast’s York Street. Since then both Scottish Crown and Welsh Language versions have been installed. Royal Mail expects to have 7000 in service eventually.
The CVPHM collection does not yet contain an example of a CiiiR box, but we do have plans to represent this current reign…