page_title: Pillar Box War
section_title: Actions and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Pillar Box War / Actions and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: An example of a post-1954 pattern Royal Mail lamp post box of the type used in Scotland, showing the Crown of Scotland.
context_page_description: The Pillar Box War refers to a number of politically motivated acts of vandalism against post boxes in Scotland during the early 1950s in a dispute over the correct title of the new British monarch, Elizabeth II.
context_section_description: Some occasions of vandalism  and even explosions of post boxes which carried the Queen's EIIR insignia were recorded. One particular pillar box in Edinburgh's Inch district was repeatedly vandalised with tar, paint and a hammer before being blown to pieces less than three months after its unveiling.
  The folksongs Sky High Joe and The Ballad of the Inch commemorate these events.
  After 1953, new post boxes were placed in Scotland carrying only the Crown of Scotland image rather than the EIIR cypher, which continued to be used in the rest of the United Kingdom, and indeed in some of the Queen's other realms and territories. A post box with the EIIR cypher was installed in Dunoon in 2018 and immediately scheduled for replacement on discovery of the error.
caption: Post-1954 pattern Royal Mail lamp post box of the type used in Scotland, showing the Crown of Scotland
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