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London souvenir shops - 3rd May 2023

King Charles III will be crowned king on 6th May. Sales at shops near Buckingham Palace have increased. Tourists in London are buying coronation souvenirs. They want to remember this royal event.

Australian tourist Julie Whitehead’s buying her mum a King Charles souvenir.

Julie Whitehead: "But my mother is a fanatic royalist. So, she's got a glass cabinet with all of these royal things, like her other daughters have come over here and purchased all this memorabilia. And so, I'm gonna pick up the King Charles ones for her because her cabinet's full of Queen Elizabeth."

King Charles III’s face is printed on all sorts of souvenirs. Bags, teddy bears and items for tea time are very popular. The highest quality products are more expensive.

Ismayil Vadakkethil says people are happy to pay extra for special items.

Ismayil Vadakkethil: "It's available in most of the shops around in London now. But we have some exclusives that which we have, so we had to pay some extra to get them in. For example, some of the mugs here, they're made in the UK itself. So, they might pay like £3 extra on the mug, but they don't mind paying it because, because of the quality, and they are made in the UK, so they like to buy for the price we have put on them."

Many of the customers are citizens of Commonwealth countries. Rebecca’s hoping to find some original souvenirs. Coronation items aren’t available in Canada.

Rebecca Grisnich: "Well, I'm from Canada, and while the monarchy is also in Canada, they don't really have any coronation stuff. So."

Adele Alison’s going to watch the coronation from her home in South Africa. She’s going to celebrate with a royal cup of tea.

Adele Alison: "For the coronation, yeah. So, at least when we're back in South Africa on Sunday we can watch it and have some tea."

Vadakkethil said that the coronation has made the souvenirs popular with both tourists and local residents.

Ismayil Vadakkethil: "We sell equally like, royal family stuff plus the souvenirs. But recently, I've noticed that it's not just tourists coming in, like people who work next door like in the offices or like people from, the Londoners itself; they come in to the shop just to buy the coronation stuff. So, that, that's a bit of change. Yeah, so we have both tourists and local customers coming in for the coronation."