Stanley Gibbons

The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange specialising in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in London. The company is a major stamp dealer and philatelic publisher. The company's philatelic subsidiary, Stanley Gibbons Limited, had a royal warrant of appointment from Queen Elizabeth II.

The company has a long corporate history, having started as a sole trader business owned by Edward Stanley Gibbons in 1856 and now being a quoted company with a number of subsidiaries.

The business started when, employed as an assistant in his father's pharmacy shop in Plymouth, Gibbons set up a counter selling stamps. In 1863 he was fortunate enough to purchase from two sailors a sackful of rare Cape of Good Hope triangular stamps.

In 1874 Gibbons moved to a house near Clapham Common in south London and in 1876 he moved again to Gower Street in Bloomsbury near the British Museum.

By 1890 Stanley Gibbons wished to retire and the business was sold to Charles Phillips for £25,000 (equivalent to £3.4 million in 2023). Phillips became managing director, with Gibbons as chairman.

In 1891 a shop was opened at 435 Strand in addition to the Gower Street premises, and in 1893 the shop and offices were amalgamated at 391 Strand where the company's retail premises remained for many years until they moved to 399 Strand.

A new issue department was opened in 1906.^{[citation needed]} In 1914 the company received a royal warrant from George V, followed in 1940 by another from George VI. In 1956 the company celebrated its centenary with an exhibition at the Waldorf Hotel opened by Sir John Wilson. In the same year, Queen Elizabeth II granted her royal warrant to Stanley Gibbons Ltd as her philatelist.

In 1967 the firm expanded into the United States in a joint venture with Whitman Publishing. A magazine and catalogues were produced.