South African overprinted postal orders for Lesotho.

[Aidan_Work]

In Peter Thy's book on Page 7,he depicts a South African-overprinted 6d. (2d. on 1d. Poundage) B.P.O. that was issued at Mafeteng on the 27th. of June 1939,as the only confirmed evidence that overprinted postal orders were issued in Basutoland.This note is extremely unusual,as it was overprinted for issue in one country,but issued in another country.

From 1966,when Basutoland became fully independent within the British Commonwealth as the Kingdom of Lesotho,it was decided that Lesotho would issue postal orders,but these would be South African postal orders overprinted 'LESOTHO',as Lesotho was part of a monetary union with South Africa - using Rand & Cents,as was Swaziland.At that time,South Africa was not a member state of the British Commonwealth.

It is not yet known when the issue of South African-overprinted postal orders in Lesotho ceased to be replaced by Lesotho's own distinctive postal orders.

I had found these issues to be extremely elusive to me,until the recent P.O.S. postal auction,in which there was a 20c. (3c. on 2c. Commission) overprinted postal order that was issued at Maseru on the 6th. of August 1976.It had a starting price of 3 Quid,so I took a punt & put a bid of 7 Quid on it.Unusually,I was successful,as I had put bids on these issues in previous auctions & been unsuccessful.

Since 1994,the South African overprinted postal orders have been classified as an issue from one British Commonwealth country that was overprinted for use in another British Commonwealth country.

Aidan.