There are many people in the world who have a passion for doing something new and one of them is Steve Knight, an email enthusiast who has spent 35 years gathering the largest private collection of post boxes in mainland UK.
His collection includes 166 post boxes, 25 stamp vending machines and thousands of related items and is housed in the Colne Valley Postal History Museum in Halstead, Essex.
Thirty years ago, Steve opened the 536 square foot museum, which is located in his garden, to the public and has since welcomed visitors from around the world, as per ExpressUK.
The 63-year-old bought his first post box from an antique shop in Cambs because he thought it would look nice in his garden.
However, his collection expanded, leading him to open the Colne Valley Postal History Museum.
Among its collection, the oldest item on display is a 1857 wall box, one of the first boxes used as the national standard for postboxes.
The museum is now the largest publicly accessible postal history site in mainland UK, second only to the Postal Museum on the Isle of Wight.
Not only this, the museum features stamp vending machines from 1917 that were designed to accept the currency used in the UK before decimalisation.
