EclectEcon

On the right is Ms. Eclectic, mailing some of many postcards she sent while she was with me in England.

The mailbox looks old and beaten up, but that is mainly because it is on a high traffic route at Paddington Station and probably has, indeed, been seriously beaten up many times by delivery vehicles. It cannot be more than 55 years old at the most, though, because it has "ER" on it, with II between the E and the R, meaning it was installed while Elizabeth II was queen (she became queen in 1952).





On the left is an older mail boxin Hailsham (in East Sussex, southeast England). It has GR on it, meaning it was installed while George VI (Elizabeth's father) was king.






And below, from the town of Rye, is a photograph of a mailbox that is probably more than 100 years old. It has VR on it, meaning it dates from Queen Victoria's era.



Here are some other examples of the different-aged mailboxes. Most of the VR mailboxes I've seen have been embedded in brick columns. Presumably they are left in place because ripping them out and replacing them would be costly (though it appears that all the mailboxes are repainted fairly frequently).



[h/t to JZ for explaining all this to me!]






Update: Here is a website with tonnes of information about British Letter Boxes. Part II of the history has more information about the era about which I wrote above [h/t to Tim Worstall in the comments].