The Orange Free State, Pages from a Postmark Collections

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PREFACE
NOVEMBER 1982
Fortunately some thirty years ago; and quite fortuitously, the Author began to take an interest in the postal history, mainly postal markings, of the Orange Free State. In those days the acknowledged authority was Mr. C. Fenn,FRPSL whom this author came to know very well. When, in 1956, he published his " OFS
Postal and other Markings " Mr. Fenn honoured this new entrant to OFS Postal History by inviting him to criticise the proofs of his book. Mr. Fenn certainly accumulated a great deal of information not previously known and this fact should long have been, and is now recorded.
Later Manfred Weinstein RDPSA, FRPSL, so well known in South Africa, pursued inner studies on the same subject. At the same time,in the Post Office Archives in Pretoria, Dr. H.O. Reisener discovered valuable information on what the Post office Circulars of 1904 described as the "Brass Defacers issued to the Post Office Agencies". I have been indebted to all of those philatelists as well as to Mr. J. Schoeman for help and advice on many postal history matters, more especially when I came to write "The Orange Free State - the Postal Offices and their Markings - 1868 - 1910". Alas, none of those very knowledgeable philatelists are mow with us.
Over these past thirty years I have amassed a large collection comprising some hunreds of covers and cards, as well as some thousands of postal markings on single stamps. In 1976 my principal book - already mentioned - was published. This led to a vast and continuing correspondence in the course of which I have often been asked to publish some of the cards and covers illustrating the use of the postmarks. To do so satisfactorily presented many problems. Reproductions of single stamps bearing postal markings are rarely satisfactory. Only a small proportion of covers and cards lend themselves to fine reproduction since many are almost a century old and yet more have passed through the post with all the wear
and tear that that involves. Moreover, it is not really practicable to show all the markings appearing at any one time.
With this admission of shortcomings this collection of reproductions of some of the more interesting pages from my collection has been published. The writing up will furnish some information, but the postal markings on one side or the other of each item has not always been shown in the illustrations.
The layout is as simple as possible with just a few very early entires and a small number of combination covers shown. Thereafter specific place names appear in alphabetical order, and where more than one item of a place is shown they are in chronological order. It is hoped that this volume will be of interest to the
students of this territory, despite its shortcomings. A.G.M.B.