Valletta Post Office

When Malta became a republic in 1974, abolishing the monarchy outright, some officials defaced the royal ciphers on Valletta’s post boxes the following year, grinding off the crowned “GR” emblems as symbolic rejection of colonial rule. But most survived intact, and today these crimson relics still serve their original purpose, each bearing the insignia of whichever British monarch reigned when it was installed. They’re not replicas, they’re the real deal, still collecting mail under Mediterranean sun.

The 1975 defacements had a strange historical echo nobody seems to have planned. When the British themselves took control of Malta in the early 19th century, colonial administrators under Governor Maitland ordered the coats of arms of the old Knights of St. John ground off monuments around the island, erasing the previous regime’s symbols the same way independence-era Malta would later erase Britain’s. Grinding off a predecessor’s insignia turned out to be a tradition, not an innovation.

Most boxes escaped that fate simply by being too numerous and too useful to bother with. Malta’s heritage authority eventually caught up to what the postal service had been quietly preserving by default: in 2007, a full survey recorded 160 post boxes and 68 telephone booths still standing, and all of them were scheduled as protected Grade 2 heritage assets. The empire left. The mail slots stayed on duty.