The Pretoria Postmaster Tokens of 1871

Pierre H. Nortje (May 2026)

It is frustrating if one knows that items of collectable interest were issued at some stage, but as no examples have since been discovered, one has no clue how they looked.

Our story begins in the year 1869, when Friederich (Fred) Heinrich Jeppe was appointed Postmaster General of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republic. One of his first duties was to place an order for the first postage stamps of the ZAR with the engraver, Adolph Otto of Güstrow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany.

Picture of Fred Jeppe who was one of the signatories on the ZAR £1 shown on the right. His two brothers, Julius and Hermann, were also at some stage in their careers, the Postmaster Generaal of the ZAR. Sources: Wikipedia and Noonans Mayfair.

The issuing date was initially set for 1 January 1870 for these postage stamps of three values, being the penny (red), sixpence (blue) and shilling (green). A further supply, including a small printing press, was ordered that finally reached the Transvaal in February 1870 and issues of the same values were printed locally.

These were issued to the public at the twelve ZAR Post Offices on 1 May 1870.

Source: Transvaal Study Circle

Up till then, it seems that the ZAR was very much dependent for some of its postage matters on its neighbouring republic, the Orange Free State. Letters sent to the Cape Colony, for example, had to pass through the OVS, which incurred transit postage costs. The Transvaalers resented this, as ZAR paper money was not accepted for purchasing OVS stamps, and it was difficult to procure Free State notes.

It would seem that there was also a discrepancy in the value of the OVS vs. the ZAR paper money. The only hard specie that was available was English coinage that was not devalued like the money of the two Republics after the depression of the 1860s, but the public mostly hoarded these, and it was seldom seen in circulation.

So when the ZAR started to issue its own stamps, the problem of hard currency to purchase the stamps remained. (It was more than 20 years later, in 1892, under the Presidency of Paul Kruger, that the ZAR started to bring its own coinage into circulation). However, as we shall see, good-for paper notes were most probably used.

On 17 January 1871, Fred Jeppe’s younger brother Julius was appointed the Postmaster of Pretoria, and due to a shortage of money to purchase stamps, had Postal Tokens made for this purpose. The following notice was published by him in the Staats-Courant, number 377 on 9 May 1871.

Julius Jeppe

Hy tot gemakkelykheid van het Pretoria publiek kaartjes heeft laten maken van 6d, 3d, 2d en 1d welke kaartjes teen Vrystaat’s-geld ten zynen kantore te bekomen zyn en in betaling van Postgeld terug genomen worden.

Julius Jeppe thus had tickets made (tokens, presumably made from cardboard = kaartjies) at the values of a Penny, 2-Pence, 3-Pence and 6-Pence for the convenience of the Pretoria public, which were available at his (post) offices for Free State money and upon the payment of postage, be taken back (by the Post Office presumably).

This is actually confusing: - Firstly, were the tickets used to pay directly for the postage costs or to buy postage stamps with? Secondly, why would the Pretoria public have to pay for the tokens in Free State money?

During that period (1871), the only official money of the Orange Free State was banknotes that were issued by the OFS government, and both banknotes and good-fors issued by the government through the Bloemfontein Bank. The banknotes were issued in denominations of £1 and higher, so these were probably not used to buy postage stamps. The good-fors were probably used that were issued by the Bloemfontein bank in lower denominations. In the ZAR, notes were also issued in lower denominations by the government (e.g. 6d and 1/-), so the question remains why the Pretoria public were directed to use the Free State issues?

Good Fors issued by the OFS and the ZAR during the 1860s and early 1870s. Source: Hern’s Handbook on Pre Reserve Banknotes of South Africa

A possible answer is that if members of the public, for whatever reason, had Free State good fors in their possession, they could use them to buy the tokens as the ZAR post offices did not accept payment in OFS paper money. If this were the case, the general public did not have to buy the tokens if they had ZAR notes or hard currency (British coins) to purchase stamps with.

A few last questions: Who manufactured the tickets/tokens, and how did they look?

The lower denominations of the so-called 4th series ZAR notes printed in 1869 were done locally and, unlike the higher denominations, were printed on cardboard. We think that the Post Office Tickets that were issued from 9 May 1871, were also made from cardboard and know that they were printed locally. We speculate that the printer could have been Johannes Philippus (Jan) Borrius, who printed the ZAR stamps from September 1870 to 1874. In earlier years, he worked as the ZAR Government Printer and knew the Jeppe family well. The 5th series ZAR notes were also printed on thick white paper from November 1871 until 1872, but these were made in London by William Brown & Co, who also printed banknotes for the Orange Free State.

We do not know how the tickets look, as no examples have survived as far as we know. However, Hern’s Handbook on Pre-Reserve Bank Notes shows a Transvaal Postmaster Good-For 3d note. The signature on the note looks like that of H. van der Linden, who was appointed Postmaster General in 1866 but was discharged the next year. This good-for note (undated) thus cannot be one of the tickets that were issued by Julius Jeppe in 1871.

Picture left of the Pretoria Post Office in 1872 and the 3d good-for that was presumably signed by Postmaster-General H. van der Linden in 1866 or 1867. Sources: Friends of Tshwane Heritage Research Centre and Hern’s Handbook on Pre Reserve Banknotes of South Africa

The author would like to invite readers who might have more information on this matter to please contact him.

Sources

Our main source for this paper was an article entitled Sketch of the official dates of the introduction of Transvaal stamps and other matters that was written by F.G. Froehlich and published in 1969 in Africana Notes and News (Vol 18, no. 7). Other sources used were A History of the Regular and Emergency Paper Money Issues of South Africa (1971) by W. Bergman and South African Paper Money by R.F. Kennedy (1973) that was published in Africana Curiosities by Anna. H. Smith. Further sources are provided in the text.