Originally posted on the Niantic Wayfarer Vanilla forums in March 2023 and has had minor updates
One thing that people in the UK seem to enjoy [citation needed] discussing is our various postboxes which are marked with royal cyphers, so I wanted to look at a few things.
I am not asking for clarifications or a yes/no, despite posting here, but thought it was probably the right place for it and to try and make some kind of timeline of threads that discuss it, and some details about official views from Historic England & Royal Mail, and allow for some discussion with links and images.
Post Offices are mentioned in the original OPR guide, but not Post Boxes.
The earliest I can find is when a question was asked during an Ingress AMA, before Wayfarer was Wayfarer and was OPR.
This was revisited by the person who raised the query in March 2020;
Firstly an apology, I made a massive mistake last year asking the AMA postbox question but it opened a Pandora’s box that needs to be closed.
The majority of postboxes are just regular and mass produced, realistically the only interesting ones are Edward Viii ones as there are only 138 left. Penfold postboxes are interesting as they are visually unique and Golden postboxes have an interesting history as each one was painted in honour of an Olympic Gold Medallist.
please can we get some clarification that the more common and less interesting ones are not eligible. There are 18,213 GR postboxes and many are now becoming portals, add those to the 9000 GViR postboxes and that’s a lot of low quality portals entering the network.
In the above thread on the original forums, NianticCasey made a comment which is below on March 20th 2020;
Confirmed, if there’s nothing visually unique about these postboxes (i.e. that they’ve been painted with a mural or are historic for some reason) then they’re not eligible.
However, the debate about which cyphers are eligible and not still continued.
Historic England & Royal Mail recognises that some post boxes have greater historical significance than others (https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/royal-mail-post-boxes/heritage-agreement-for-royal-mail-post-boxes/) in a joint policy heritage agreement they did;
which we were asked in review before the change in systems;
As mentioned, the debate continued still with many, many threads to the point where they even took over the weekend trailmarker joke on the previous forums, and even information about how many postboxes there are for each monarch, including Queen Elizabeth II.
Taken from the previously mentioned document from Historic England.
It is worth noting to non-UK reviewers that E II R postboxes will, in most cases only have a Scottish Crown logo in Scotland but these are the same as the regular E II R ones across the UK. If you’re curious, look up Pillar Box War on your preferred search engine.
Then, of course in September 2022 the monarch at the time, Queen Elizabeth II fell ill and sadly passed away. Unfortunately many used this opportunity to leap at the chance to submit a postbox with her cypher on claiming it was now acceptable as she had passed, which prompted views like;
I can’t wait for the inevitable threads on the implications recent events have on what post boxes are acceptable in the UK. I know there’s enterprising submitters firing up their QEII submissions as we speak.
I shared my own view at the time.
Postboxes are sketchy enough for their eligibility under Niantic’s updated criteria (great place to be social/exercise/explore) and many not meet any of those in many cases.
As Queen Elizabeth II has now sadly passed, this does not automatically make her cyphered postboxes (E II R) eligible. Do not submit them unless they meet criteria in another way (such as Olympic golden boxes).
Also discussed was the first C III R postbox, which has not yet been placed (to my knowledge) but would be of large cultural significance (there will be news stories about it) so I would personally rate that well for that section in a review.
I’ll close out this long post of images & threads with this scan about the first Pillar Boxes from Historic England’s document. Be nice to each other when discussing, and await the next very UK specific thread!
This is all just my own musings, and to provide UK folks a place to discuss these, whether submitting or nominating the familar red postboxes.
happy to lend a hand.
