Stanley Gibbons

The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange and which specialises in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in Jersey but with offices in London, Ringwood in Hampshire and Guernsey. They have also recently opened new offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company is a major stamp dealer and philatelic publisher. The company's philatelic subsidiary, Stanley Gibbons Limited, has a royal warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

History of the company

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.

Before 1900

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.