The object: Smythson’s correspondence cards
Fifty cards from Bond Street for £13. It's a very small sum by the standards of luxury, and possibly the best spent, because it changes what you actually do.
Most luxury is a matter of spending more on something you’d have bought anyway. This is the rarer kind, where a very small sum changes what you do. Fifty cards from Smythson of Bond Street cost £13. That’s very little for anything from a shop like that, and you’d struggle to find a better use for it.
Why this one
Smythson traces itself to 1887, when Frank Smythson opened on Bond Street selling, in the company’s own words, “stationery and fancy articles of a high-class character”. The plain correspondence card is about as simple as stationery gets: cream wove card at 350gsm, 16cm by 10cm, made in England, in a box of fifty. There’s no name or motif on it, and nothing to go out of date.
The size is the clever part. A correspondence card is written on one side, with room for three or four sentences and no more. That removes the real obstacle to writing to anyone, which is the fear of a large blank sheet. You can say thank you, say you’re sorry to hear the news, or say how good dinner was, and be done before the kettle has boiled.
Weight does the rest. A card of that weight should feel deliberate in the hand, and a person who opens it will know that you sat down and gave them five minutes. In a month of messages, that’s what they’ll keep. It’s also the easiest way to honour one of our rules: send your thanks in writing within two days. Keep the box on your desk with some stamps, and two days becomes easy.
What it costs
The cards are £13 for fifty. Matching watermarked cream envelopes are £17 for 25, at 16.5cm by 11cm, so you’ll need two boxes to use up the cards. That comes to £47, or 94p a note before the stamp. Smythson’s free UK delivery starts at orders over £200, so expect to pay for delivery on an order this small.
You can go further. Smythson’s personalised cards are engraved from a copper plate and printed by hand in Wiltshire. They’re sold in multiples of 50, with watermarked envelopes included, and the card with your name is listed at £216; check the price again once you’ve chosen materials and finishes. They’re lovely, and they aren’t where to start. Buy the plain box first, and only have your name engraved once you’ve proved you’ll use them. Then write something today, while you still know who deserves it.
How we chose: prices, sizes and history are from Smythson’s own website, read on 4 November 2026, when both plain products showed as available. The cards were not handled for this piece, and the photograph shows a blank card and envelope for illustration, not Smythson’s. The opinions are ours, and nobody paid to appear here.
