Bid Smart: Collectors pay royal premium for coronation souvenirs

Detail from the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation set by Britains, #2081, showing the young monarch riding in a royal carriage. The set to which it belongs achieved $9,000 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers.
Britains, the venerated British toy soldier company, released set #2081 to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The only known complete boxed example achieved $9,000 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers.
Britains, the venerated British toy soldier company, released set #2081 in 1953 to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The only known complete boxed example achieved $9,000 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers.

NEW YORK — If there’s one thing people love to celebrate, it’s the pomp and circumstance of royalty. Even in the United States, a country that launched a revolution in 1775 to declare independence from England’s King George III, there is still a fascination with the British royal family. Millions of television viewers across the world watched the late Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in June 1953 as well as the wedding of Charles and Diana in the summer of 1981, and the weddings of Charles and Diana’s two sons decades later. Queen Elizabeth II had the longest tenure of any British monarch, serving slightly more than 70 years in all, and she ruled longer than any woman head of state.

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