With Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, royal memorabilia expected to increase in value

Purple velvet curtains drape the window fronts at the official royal gift shop located just a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace in London.

The shop has remained closed since Queen Elizabeth II’s death earlier this month.

But next door at Majestic Gifts, business is booming. Demand for royal memorabilia has skyrocketed since the queen’s death in the United Kingdom.

“It’s been really really busy for the last couple of weeks,” said manager Nasir Abdul, who admits the shop could have been more prepared for this moment.

Abdul said that when the news broke on Sept. 8, he rushed to place orders for hundreds of commemorative T-shirts and mugs emblemed with the queen’s face and referencing her years of service. 

The biggest sellers over the last few weeks have been items commemorating the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which was celebrated in June to mark her 70 years on the throne.

Suzanne Kempe, who came to London for the day to take in the atmosphere, showed off some magnets with the queen’s face on them, which she’s planning on sending to friends in France.

“I was just looking at anything here really and seeing what was new,” she said.

Merchandise from the Platinum Jubilee generated more than $326 million in sales over the summer alone, according to the UK Center for Retail Research.

Shyam Sanghani, who runs Love London Souvenirs in Russell Square, said that anything with the queen’s face on it has been a hit for his family run shop, which recently celebrated 37 years in business.

Indeed, a 2021 poll found the queen’s brand allure was greater than Nike, Ferrari and Pepsi.

But Sanghani doesn’t think king-related merchandise will see as much popularity.

“For the past 70 years, it’s always been the queen. It’s going to be difficult — I don’t think we will sell as much for Charles.”

Royal superfan Anita Atkinson disagrees.

“I have full faith in Charles’s selling power,” said Atkinson, who with 13,000 items and counting, has perhaps the largest personal collection of royal memorabilia in the world.

She has a small museum next to her house in Durham that’s filled with tea towels, calendars, oil paintings and hundreds of china plates. One of her favorite items is a framed napkin used by King Charles in 1977.

Atkinson’s collection is currently worth $225,000 but she said she isn’t interested in the money.

“I’m not bothered whether this collection is valuable because to me it’s valueless,” she said. “I’m never going to sell a single piece of it, so it doesn’t matter if it’s worth a penny or a million pounds.”

Atkinson said that she plans to eventually pass the collection down to her grandchildren, and she hopes they will inherit the royalist ferver she’s been building up for decades.

But for people who do place a monetary value on these items, experts say hold on to them — they’ll be worth more and more in the coming years.