STAMP IT OUT; Rural raiders nab postboxes to sell on eBay for souvenirs.(News)

Byline: By NIALL DONALD

CRAFTY thieves are delivering easy pickings to themselves - by stealing valuable antique postboxes.

An Post chiefs are now hoping to stamp out the thefts that have claimed eight green postboxes this year already.

The criminals are stealing small metal letterboxes which are attached to lampposts and telegraph poles in rural areas.

Then they are flog the boxes over the internet as souvenirs.

An Post spokesman Richie Ryan claimed the robbers are highly organised: "It's not an opportunist thing people do on the way home from the pub on Saturday night.

"You would need heavy equipment to take down those postboxes.

"The boxes have a nostalgic factor for Irish people living abroad - and the postboxes are very valuable.

"Many end up on the walls of Irish pubs abroad.

"A number of boxes have been stolen on weekend nights along the border recently - and we believe they were stolen to order.

"Last month, a box was stolen from a lamppost in Boyle in Co Roscommon.

"The Gardai recovered one in Longford a week later - but it turned out

to be a different box which had gone missing from Crosskeys in Cavan."

Two postboxes were also stolen from Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick, and Banlestown in Co Kilkenny.

One old-style metal Irish postbox sold for more than EUR1,000 on an internet auction site last year.

The crooks also sell the postboxes to souvenir shops outside Ireland.

Mr Ryan said: "We have only anecdotal evidence about who buys the boxes. Most of them probably end up on the walls of Irish bars all over the world.

"Last year, one box was found for sale in an antique shop in the UK - and it had been painted red."

He also said thieves even stole a full-length pillarbox in Longford.

He said: "I don't know how they managed to dig it out of the ground but they took a full pillarbox.

"The robberies don't happen every week - but it is an ongoing problem for An Post."

Irish postboxes were originally painted red just like British ones - but after independence the Government ordered them painted green.