George V

[John_Gledhill]

All images are © Copyright Postal Order Society and the owners.

King George V

1st issue "Downey" head







ex Howard Lunn, Tony Brown

War Loan "scrip voucher"
Printed on Postal Order paper by the Bank of England, 1915

This issue reflects the very first war savings scheme. Scrip vouchers totalling £5 could be exhanged for a £5 stock certificate on 1 December, and then received a farthing a month interest from the first month after purchase on each 5 shilling voucher till 1 December 1915. A bonus of 1s was added if the scrip vouchers were converted into a £5 stock certificate.
The values available were 5/-, 10/- and £1 (as shown below).



ex Michael Brill






The rear of this 10s voucher shows an error in that the £1 plate was used for the reverse, so needed a correction to 10s, made by hand.

ex Michael Brill

2nd issue, Mackennal profile head

1915 provisional poundage



On 1 October 1915 the poundage on 6d-2/6d postal orders was raised from ½d to 1d. As a short term measure some postal orders were surcharged with the new poundage. The only recorded examples are on the 2/6d value.


enlarged detail of the above.



ex Howard Lunn, Tony Brown


1920 provisional poundage



On 1 June 1920 the poundage on 3s-15s postal orders was raised from 1d to 1½d and orders from 15/6d-21s was raised from 1½d to 2d. As a short term measure some postal orders were surcharged with the new poundage. The only recorded examples are on 4/6d and 5/6d orders.



Enlarged detail of the above.


ex Howard Lunn, Tony Brown

3rd issue, smaller design, 2 stamp-boxes at the left


ex Howard Lunn, Tony Brown


Advertising coupon from Sketchley Dye Works, 1932, modelled on a contemporary postal order, and pasted onto the front of one of the company's cardboard folders. The "datestamp" shows the period of vailidity of the special offer as "1st Feb to 13th Feb 1932".

1935 George V's Silver Jubilee



This 6d Postal Order was datestamped on the first day of issue.

Theft of Postal Orders and stamps

Post Office notice of 1947 about the theft of £650 worth of postal orders and stamps. £650 equates to about £30,000 in 2009 RPI, or £117,000 in terms of average earnings.

4th issue, 2 stamp boxes at the right



4th issue, change of validity to 6 months



This example from 1937 shows the perforated "datestamp" used by Littlewood's pools for mass issue of winnings. The perforations show (in coded form) the month, day and the place of issue.



Detail of the above, showing perforation "6 12" in the top line (6 December) and "L C" in the 2nd line (Liverpool, machine number C).

Postal orders issued in booklets





Booklets of postal orders were first issued on 1 November 1935, and they were withdrawn in March 1939. The prefix to the serial number is preceded by a large capital B, irrespective of the denomination of the postal order.



A copy of the very seldom used 19/6d denomination.

In later issues the words "IN INK" were added to the instructions at the top of the Postal Order.

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As the site manager, I welcome any comments and suggestions from members, but cannot (of course) guarantee to implement them all.

[Aidan_Work]

The fact that all British Postal Orders were printed at the Bank of England's printing works also strengthens the case for postal order collecting to be a branch of notaphily,which is also a branch of numismatics in itself.

Those postal orders are very nice.

The John Bradbury signed scrip vouchers are pretty distinctive,as they sort of remind me of the British Treasury banknotes.I have one of the early 1920's issues of the British Treasury 10/- note in my collection.

Aidan.