Red post boxes turn gold

To mark Helen Glover’s gold medal winning performance, Royal Mail has painted the iconic red post box in Quay Street, Penzance, gold. The UK is the first country to paint post boxes gold to celebrate Olympic and Paralympic gold medal wins.

Royal Mail will be painting its iconic and much-loved red post boxes gold to celebrate every Team GB and Paralympics GB gold medal win during the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. The gold post boxes will be located in the hometowns of the gold medallists wherever possible. To celebrate a gold medal win by a Team GB team, a post box will be painted gold for every team member.

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The gold post box in Penzance is a unique opportunity for residents to celebrate the win and raise the profile of their town’s own gold medallist Olympian.

The gold boxes will remain in use and customers will be able to post mail in these boxes as normal. Mail collections from the boxes will also be unaffected. The boxes will be repainted in Royal Mail’s traditional red in due course.

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To celebrate the win of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the Women’s Pair rowing final, Royal Mail also produced special gold medal stamps yesterday which are on sale in more than 500 Post Offices from around lunchtime today. The stamps feature an image of Helen and Heather celebrating their win just after crossing the finishing line. A further 4,700 branches will be selling the gold medal stamps within a week of a win.

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