Royally Yours... The Most Majestic Wedding Memorabilia on eBay

By Felicity Loughrey
April 25, 2011

william and kate

Britain's Prince William and his fiancée Kate Middleton (Photo credit should read BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)

His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales will marry Kate Middleton at a Westminster Abbey wedding on Friday, April 29. Britons get the day off to celebrate and wave Union Jacks. Across the pond, it’s our chance to sip tea and revel in the kitschy fabulousness of a fairytale royal wedding.

Since William and Kate's royal wedding announcement was made, eBay listings for royal memorabilia have skyrocketed. Consider this: When we compared a recent 30-day period (3/18-4/16) with a period approximately one year prior, we found that eBay sales of royal memorabilia with the term "royal wedding" had more than tripled, while online auction sales for items with the term "Kate Middleton," were a whopping 305 times higher.

London

Bunting hangs on Regent Street on April 19, 2011 in London, England. Preparations are underway across the city as the Royal wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton draws nearer. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Royal Wedding souvenirs

A tourist purchases some Royal Wedding souvenirs from a street stall in March in London. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

To understand the appeal of snapping up royal wedding souvenirs like a Wills and Kate coffee mug, we turned to two stylish New Yorkers.

First, Elizabeth Angell is articles editor at beauty bible Allure. Her collection of royal memorabilia includes a ceramic dish that commemorates the Queen’s silver jubilee, a mug that celebrates Prince William’s birth, another mug with Charles and Camilla and a set of spoons with royal busts.

The Inside Source: What’s the appeal of royal memorabilia to you?

Elizabeth Angell: I’m an anglophile and I like the mix of high-low that royal family memorabilia represents.  Right after college, I was a research assistant to the authors of this book, Death of a Princess. I’d arrived in Paris just days before she died and got a job helping Tom and Scott, who were both reporters for Time magazine. I wasn’t especially interested in the royal family before that but working on the book, I read a lot about them and Diana’s role in the family and I became completely fascinated with how an ancient institution modernizes itself—who adapts well and who adapts badly—and how they handle, manipulate, embrace and reject the cult of celebrity that defined Diana and now all of them.

The Inside Source: Do you have a favorite royal?

Elizabeth Angell: I like the whole weird bunch of them. I have a subscription to Hello magazine that a friend gives me every Christmas (my favorite gift ever!) and I love reading about all the other royal families (Spain, Greece and Denmark being the most interesting) but I’m not tempted by their tchochkes, no.

The Inside Source: What are your hopes for Will and Kate’s wedding?

Elizabeth Angell: I’m excited for the event itself—I love a good public spectacle and this promises to be a doozy. And like everyone else, I want to see what Kate wears.

The Inside Source: What royal memorabilia do you want to get your hands on?

Elizabeth Angell: I would love some tea towels. It’s just so incongruous to dry your dishes with the future king and queen of England. My taste runs towards the kinds of things I imagine little old ladies in the London suburbs would like. Nothing garish or fake looking. I want to be able to serve tea on it.

Here’s what caught Angell's eye on eBay. Her word of caution for conducting a similar search: “Don’t search for Prince of Wales. You get too much plaid!”

Roll over items for details

Coronation Queen Elizabeth Royal Doulton Beaker

(buy it now price, $16.30)

Queen Elizabeth Royal Coronation Bracelet

Queen Elizabeth Coronation Tin

Royal Crown Derby Queen Elizabeth Plate

(buy it now price, $119.99)

Lysander Commemorative Box of Prince Charles and Lady Diana

Royally Yours... The Most Majestic Wedding Memorabilia on eBay

Richard Christiansen runs Chandelier Creative, a downtown agency that counts Claire’s, Club Monaco and Bloomingdales as clients. From his childhood in rural Australia, he recalls a Charles and Diana plate hanging in his grandmother’s kitchen. In his early twenties he moved to London and lived in a share apartment with a view of Kensington Palace. It was then that he began collecting royal-embossed teacups.

The Inside Source: Tell us about your most prized piece of royal memorabilia.

Richard Christiansen : My most coveted possession is an accordion-folded, printed souvenir of the Queen's coronation. It’s one of the most beautifully designed and printed pieces I have ever seen: handmade and glued together. It’s like a pop-up book, but it’s an accordion, so it expands outwards like a tunnel. You look through one end, and you can look down Queen's Gate towards Buckingham Palace. I found it at a vintage book dealer in Los Angeles last month, and then used it as the inspiration for a client's catalog. What's amazing is how well it's made and designed—and I can't find a printer anywhere who can reproduce it the same way.

The Inside Source: Who’s your favorite royal?

Richard Christiansen : I’m a Diana man. Looking at Diana in my grandmother’s magazines was my first glimpse into fashion and design.

The Inside Source: What are your hopes for Will and Kate’s wedding?

Richard Christiansen : I’m super excited. I might go to London for the wedding if I can. If not, I will definitely have a party for it. It's great to see young graphic designer's having fun with the memorabilia. I saw a tea seat in London last month which said ‘William! It should have been me.’ And another plate set that said, ‘Wills, thanks for the holiday.’ So rather than [creating] cheap souvenirs, young designers are making it feel more fun and modern.