1882: Postal Orders were first introduced for the purpose of transmitting small sums of money through the postal system. This ranged from a minimum of 6d through to a maximum of ₤1.1s, and was designed to serve those regions where the facilities of a Money Order Office were not immediately available. In 1908 the Cape Postal Order was replaced by the British Postal Order.

ORANJE VRIJ STAAT POST NOOTEN (POSTAL ORDERS)

Background

The money order system was first formally established in Great Britain in 1792, by a private company. It was not a success, and in the mid-1830s the concept was taken over by the post office. The postal orders which developed out of money order system were issued first in 1881 in Great Britain & Ireland. Postal orders of the Orange Free State
were introduced on the 1 January, 1898. They came in a range of denominations from 1 Shilling to 1 Pond. The Orange Free State's postal orders were known in Afrikaans as Post Noot (or Postal Note). The Orange Free State postal notes are inscribed in simplified High Dutch (early emergent Afrikaans) with the Orange Free State's appearing in High Dutch - 'ORANJE VRIJ STAAT', which also appears in the watermark. Issued postal orders did not have counterfoils attached as these were kept by the post office for record purposes. Any postal orders that still have a counterfoil attached are remainders from books and are likely to have been purloined as souvenirs during the Second Boer War. These are of interest to collectors of Commonwealth of Nations postal orders, however.
Orange Free State Currency Issues
The Oranje Vrij Staat (Orange Free State) and the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (South African Republic) were the first countries in the world to declare postal orders to be legal tender as an emergency currency. At that time, it was difficult to distinguish between the currency issues and the normal postal notes.
Paid Postal Notes/Orders
The most common postal notes found are those that have been paid within the Orange Free State prior to 1 September, 1899. The Orange Free State's postal notes/orders were allowed to be paid in the South African Republic and in the two British colonies (Cape of Good Hope and Natal) as well. The postal notes/orders of the other three entities were also allowed to be paid out in the Orange Free State under the terms of the South African Postal Union Convention (which came into effect on 1 January 1898), but the postal notes and the postal orders had to be repatriated back to the issuing entity after being cashed. The two most common denominations seen are the Een Shilling (1/-) and the Vyf Shilling (5/-) postal notes. A Postal note that has been paid in the Cape of Good Hope has a 1d. red postage stamp stuck to the back and cancelled with the paying post office's date stamp in addition to the date stamp being applied to the correct area on the face of the postal order. These are regarded by collectors of British Commonwealth postal orders as being worth slightly more than the same item paid within the Orange Free State. Both the place of issue and the place of encashment influence value. The most difficult of the postal notes to get is the Een Pond (£1), as there would have been far fewer of the 1 Pond postal notes sold than any other denomination.

Source reference from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Orders_of_the_Orange_Free_State 2. Catalogue of South African Paper Money since 1900 etc. Harold P Levius. 1st Edition, 1972 3. Standard Catalog of World Paper Money. Volume 1. Specialized issues Author: Albert Pick. Editors: Neil Shafer and George S. Cuhaj. 9th Edition, 2002. 4. The Postmarks of South Africa (10 vols) Ralph F Putzel 1986 - 2003
Pelteret
--------------------------------------------------------