What are royal families in the age of democracy?
In the UK they are “long to reign over us” no more.
But they’re still a big part of the national psyche - "cultural icons" Wikipedia tells me.
Therefore; royal memorabilia is a fascinating and potentially lucrative area for collectors.
Not a week goes by without a major royal story in the media here.
Some of it is soap opera and some of it poorly sourced gossip.
But some of it has major real-world effects.
So the royals remain in our public life, somewhere between stars and statespeople.
And collectors love them.
All royal families have allure, but here we’ll focus on the UK royal family.
The British Royals
The British royal family is currently the House of Windsor, a line running from George V through Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II to Charles III.
Previously the House of Hanover had held the title.
And, the whole business can be traced back to the 10th Century and the emergence of consolidated kingdoms of England and Scotland.
The slightly earlier King Alfred The Great (871 to 899) is often considered the first English king.
And you can find and buy memorabilia related to almost every figure in that history.
Much early material is in museums though.
What is on the open market may be limited to coins for very early British monarchs- another very interesting area for collectors.
Some royal and royal-signed documents are in antiquarian circles. They’re very valuable when they do come up for sale - 10s or 100s of thousands of pounds.
This document is signed by Elizabeth I, is museum quality, and valued at £50,000.
Most collectors of royal ephemera are more interested in the modern royals.
And the modern royal family really begins in Queen Victoria’s reign.
The UK saw massive changes as the agricultural and industrial revolutions created the world we live in now.
Communications and media became available to everyone.
And they became products.
And the royals became celebrities.
Fast forward to today and you can see where that ends:
- Auctions of props from The Crown, a huge series about them, saw single items making 10s of thousands.
- Princess Diana’s gowns are hitting the block and going for huge amounts. A Diana dress by Azagury made over $1 million last year, 11-times over its estimate.
- And the soap opera goes on. Just this week an edited photo has triggered an avalanche of press coverage and even more lurid online speculation.
The show never ends.
Personal royal memorabilia and royal collectibles
The royal family is a business.
It generates its own cash, including through licensing of images. Countless other businesses are more or less parasitic on the institution.
Royal collectibles are manufactured in their millions.
Coins and china are perhaps the most common. (We’re excluding commemorative currency and stamp issues.)
And most of these mass-produced items are never going to be terribly valuable, even though they are collectible.
The older they are the better.
And, as china items are more likely to break or deteriorate they may have more value.
Buying something like coronation collectibles is unlikely to make you a fortune, but if they are kept in good condition (packaged even) for long enough they will certainly go up in value in time.
Now, if you were invited to the coronation we’re talking about a different category of memorabilia.
Most collecting at its heart is about people, so the closer the connection an object or document has to the people on whom the buyer is fixated the better.
Coronation invitations (in 2022 there were over 2,000 sent by King Charles III) then are likely to be much more valuable much more quickly than any souvenir.
Invitations, menus, place cards and the other bumf from major royal occasions are great royal collectibles.
In 2018, an admission ticket for Queen Victoria’s funeral made about £100 at auction. It was an extremely plain piece of paper with some printed text on it.
Closer still to the monarchy are personal papers.
Letters and cards do sometimes come onto the private market.
Christmas cards can be worth several thousand pounds.
Royal autographs
The royal family do not sign autographs.
The demand would be huge, and meeting it time-consuming. But the given reason is security.
Royal signatures are rare and valuable and usually found on official documents like this 1955 Christmas Card.
As heads of state the monarch’s name still carries official weight. It’s more than just a name on some pieces of paper.
So signatures without an attached document are very unusual.
Letters, cards and so on are more routinely signed or initialed by royals and should be traced back to them for authenticity.
How much is my royal memorabilia worth?
Valuation is such a complicated process in the collectibles business that I feel many lists of values verge on the dishonest.
The truth is most collectibles are worth - in the final analysis - what someone is willing to pay for them.
That is most often demonstrated in the auction room.
Price ranges can be guessed at though.
For example:
Mass-produced memorabilia from Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation may be worth several hundred pounds if it is in good condition and from a rare and sought after category.
That figure may go up into the thousands for George V.
Personal cards and letters can go for thousands of pounds.
Valuation will depend on rarity, quality, and condition, who is connected to the item, where it is from, how old it is and more.
The exceptional royal - Edward VIII
False start: This coronation notice from the House of Commons invited members to an event that never happened.
When I talk about music memorabilia I put The Beatles in a category of their own.
The British Royal family has a Beatle.
Or a black sheep.
Edward VIII is a name that was barely used.
Edward was due to be crowned on May 12, 1937, but abdicated on December 10, 1936, unable or unwilling to address the contradictions of his private and public lives.
Edward, as Duke of Windsor, and his wife, Wallis Simpson, for whom he gave it all up, are an interesting, controversial and collectible couple in their own life.
And the shortness of his reign - 325 days - puts a big premium on many of the official trappings of royalty from that period.
Edward VIII coins and stamps are worth more. And items from the abandoned coronation have even more allure.
The star royal, Princess Diana
Anything to do with Princess Diana, this is her wedding dress, has an audience and a market.
Perhaps the royals have two Beatles.
Diana is still by far the most fascinating royal.
Her son will be the next king.
Though she divorced his father.
And died, almost certainly as a result of the intense scrutiny she attracted.
She really did live up to the Princess myth for many people.
And has inspired acres of coverage in every media, including some pretty developed conspiracy theories.
Her forward-looking sense of fashion is particularly a focus for collectors now.
We’ve mentioned her $1 million gown.
There was no doubting the glamour of that, but even a sweater she wore in a particularly well-known set of photos made almost £1 million last year.
Diana’s personal life was one of the most studied in modern British history. Letters and documents, if they ever come out, could raise extraordinary fees at auction.
How to authenticate royal memorabilia
The provenance of your item will have a huge impact on its value.
You need to be able to prove that it is what you say it is.
Usually, this means some sort of documentation chronicling its sale or its life before sale.
Should you ever be lucky enough to be given a royal item, you should ask the giver to put its story in writing and sign it. Where die they get it? Can they prove it? Is there a photo of them with the royal from whom the item came?
The lives of the royal family are documented and recorded to a very high degree. If you need to show that (then) Prince Charles was in a certain location on a certain date to help prove a signature is real then it’s often possible to do so from public sources.
You can also ask an expert. Authentication services will charge to certificate items as genuine.
We do this for free with every item we sell, and the certificate has the full weight of our reputation in the collectibles business.
Where can I sell my royal memorabilia?
There is a very big market for royal memorabilia.
List a good item online in any sales platform and you’re likely to find takers.
Specialist dealers - and we consider ourselves in this category - may well have the contacts to get you a better price or a faster sale than at an open auction.
Always protect yourself when buying and selling online.
Related to the royals
You can take royal collecting in all sorts of directions.
If you love Diana, then fashion and good causes are obviously complementary.
Charles has environmental interests.
Elizabeth II is strongly associated with the cultural and economic boom era of the 1960s.
George VI was a wartime monarch.
Many British monarchs have a second life in fiction.
The televisual magnifying glass was most recently on Elizabeth II.
Henry VIII, Charles I, Charles II, Elizabeth I, Alfred the Great, George III (the so-called “mad king”)... and more can be followed through movies, with costumes, sets, props and more to collect.
Buy royal memorabilia today
We have a fine selection of Royal Memorabilia here.
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