Philatelic Tourism In London

Hi, I'm visiting London and I'll have a couple of free hours. What philatelic attractions or dealers do you recommend to visit? Do you know of a dealer that might sell Scott International albums and supplements?

Sadly there isn't much left at all. There is Stanley Gibbons and The Stamp Centre (directly across the road and much more fun to visit) in the Strand and that's about it. However, neither does Scott catalogues. Vera Trinder have closed their offices and moved 300km away to SW England. You'd be better off spending your time visiting St. Paul's Cathedral or the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Stampex, the national stamp exhibition opens tomorrow and runs until Saturday at the Business Design Centre in Islington. You'll really enjoy it if you can make it, but I have in honesty never seen Scott albums on sale. GLENN

Tim, is the Saturday stamp fair near Charing Cross still operating?

As Tim says, central London is largely a philatelic desert - dull chain and coffee shops have ousted most things of interest. But I suspect that few British collectors would use Scott catalogues (unless they collected US) or albums (although they pop up in auctions from time to time).

The British Library has philatelic collections - not sure what arrangements one has to make in advance to view them:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bri..._Collections

If I were in London, I would visit The Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL).

The Stamp Centre on the Strand is the only decent place I know of. It's small but packed - and as Tim said above, across the road is Stanley Gibbons - worth looking in, just to say you've been there. It's dark and hush-hush, but still a landmark for stamp collectors. If you head that way, you can walk along the Strand from Trafalgar Square - it's not too far along (or jump on one of the many passing buses, if you have the right ticket - the brand new Routemasters are cool).

Thank you very much to all of you for the advice! I'll visit The Stamp Center and the traditional London attractions.
Best regards!

This looks like their website: http://www.stamp-centre.co.uk/

It seems that the web page was made before 1940.

Yes, the Stamp Centre is a bit traditional like that. It's a shop to pop in and browse (remember those?). They do all sorts of other collectibles too. Guaranteed you won't come out of there without having bought something!

Without doubt, you should visit the Tapling Collection at the British Library. Alongside the Royal Collection, this ranks as one of the world's greatest collections of stamps and contains pretty much every stamp ever issued up until 1890, including countless world class rarities. It is the only complete, intact 19th century collection in the world.

The best bit is that it is on permanent display and entry is free.

I saw this post and am visiting London from Oct 22 through November 2.

A question for the English members:

Besides watch the AB lift the Web Ellis cup--are there any other stores that a cover collector might visit

Antoni, even though I am Welsh and an eternal optimist :-) I think that the All Blacks will win. However, our victory against the English was one of our finest on foreign soil for many years.

About stores to visit I will give a shameless plug to Libritz Stamps (www.libritzstampshop.co.uk), one of the few traditional stamp shops left in the UK, and still one of the best. It's in Apsley, about 35 minutes NW of London by train. Roy has been in the business for ever, is a star, old-school, and has a great stock of stamps, coins, covers and other ephemera.

Tim--

Thanks for the tip, I may try this--I love traditional stamp shops and always try to spend something to keep them going.

Someone else told me that in London on Saturday AM there is a collector's fair where 30 dealers meet near Charing Cross Station....has anybody on this forum in London heard of this? I'm going to check it out Saturday Oct 31

The Welsh did well, but not to be. How about those Scots?

Tommy, the Charing Cross bourse continues and prior discussion is here:
https://goscf.com/t/42396

More on London:
https://goscf.com/t/40382

I believe one recent SCF member also said somewhere else that on his last visit to the Charing Cross bourse, there were about 15 dealers and the atmosphere was dank and dim (underground location, insufficient light, dealer stock not helpfully arranged).