What’s On

Tell us what we can do better, or what you’re trying to discover.

Philatelic Gallery

One of the world's great stamp collections, eighty thousand items of it on show and free.

HistoryPermanentFree

In British Library.

The Library keeps the national philatelic collections, and this gallery on the upper ground floor has about eighty thousand items on permanent display. The Tapling Collection is the heart of it: everything the world issued up to 1890, mounted on two thousand pages, with countries A to M on view and the rest brought out for researchers by appointment. Around it sit the Crown Agents' banknote and security-printing archive, Polish stamps and postal history from 1939 to 1946, German local provisionals of 1945 and 1946, and J. A. C. Harrison's die proofs for the stamps he engraved between 1911 and 1937. You do not have to care about stamps: it is a filing cabinet of the twentieth century, and the rarities are extraordinary.

Where
British Library, 96 Euston Road, NW1 2DB
Nearest station
St Pancras International · 3 min walk

At the same venue

NearbyWhat’s On

NearbyOther Categories

See more nearby listings

Submit a correction for this listing.

Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

Which area are you in?