Shop of the Week: Exchange Stamps

The Exchange Stamps kiosk has sat among the hustle and bustle of Exchange Hall in the Old City’s famous St Nick’s Market for almost 40 years. The star of the show is its owner and shopkeeper, Richard Wynne. As he sits with his back to customers, flicking through his mighty collection. You could be mistaken in thinking that he doesn’t like attention, but in fact Richard’s fame reaches far outside Bristol.

Richard with a small portion of his vast stamp collection

He quotes, with a wry smile, from an American stamp magazine in which he was featured: “’He has an unusual sales approach. His style with customers is caustic and abrupt, and they seem to love it’.”

This reputation has been gained perhaps for good reason, as Richard continues: “I have nick names for my customers, you see. This one chap who was a welder by trade, he used to spend hours here. I used to call him, if he were to reserve something, the ‘PIAW’ – Pain In the Arse Welder. Yes, you’ve got to have fun with your customers.”

Inside Richard’s kiosk, overflowing with stamp albums and paper sheets

However, as Richard speaks about his shop and the customers he sells to, it’s his passion for stamps and pleasure at helping other people enjoy them that really begin to shine through. The stamps on display in the kiosk are all Richard’s personal collection, which he chooses to share with the public.

“I know all of my regulars and I keep things back for them,” he says. “I sold a Penny Black [the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, first issued in 1840] last week, to the man who runs the business next door. It’s for one of his kids. And then I had the Two Penny Blue to go with it, and he wanted that as well.

“The Penny Black was in superb condition, and I put it at £140. The Two Penny Blue, I put that one at £350 – it was worth double, you know. I know it wasn’t the first stamp, but it came out two days after the world’s first stamp. And a penny in 1840 would be worth £1.37 in today’s money, so tuppence was an awful lot of money when people were earning less than a pound a week.”

The range of stamps Richard sells is vast – from the world’s first Victorian stamps to modern novelties

As for immortalising Bristol in stamps, Richard says that there is a collection of stamps in circulation from the 60s, depicting classic scenes of British cities, including Bristol. “It’s got the bombed church over on Castle Green, then a picture of the waterside and the Arnolfini,” he says. “If I find them, I always keep those to give to the staff at the Arnolfini, so they can give them to their customers as a surprise.”

The kiosk might only cover an area of roughly ten square feet, but there are thousands of stamps in a variety of sizes and colours, organised into themes such as country, laid out in clear plastic sheets and folders for the customer to leaf through. Some sit on the kiosk counter whereas other, more rarer and expensive stamps, are in folders behind Richard.

Richard pulls a folder from the shelf and opens it to another rare Two Penny Blue, explaining that the stamp’s quality is determined by its margins and perforation. It has a whole page to itself and is fixed right in the middle. It’s rarity can only be beaten by Richard and his remarkable shop.

Exchange Stamps, Exchange Hall, St Nicholas Market, Corn Street, Bristol, BS1 1JQ
www.bristol.gov.uk/web/st-nicholas-markets/exchange-stamps