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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
Use of revenue stamps to pay postage
Cape Town local delivery
March 1866
!
Main feature
The use of a ld revenue stamp to pay the local postage rate of ld
introduced from 15th September 1860 in Cape Town and then
gradually in other places. The ld embossed stamp was introduced
from September1864.
The use of revenue stamps is described in Jurgens from page 127. The facts are that: revenue stamps
were supplied by the Stamp Office to Distributors who were normally magistrates or civil
commissioners but never postmasters; most revenues used to pay postage are found on official letters
where fees and disbursements such as postage would be collected from the public; the large triangle
defacer was first issued to the Stamp Office in Cape Town in 1837 and was used to deface revenue
stamps on documents. The design was copied by the Post Office into the small triangle defacer of 1853.
In the case of the use of revenue stamps to pay postage the stamps would have been cancelled by the
magistrate or civil commissioner using the triangular defacer with the PO oval or circular date stamp
being applied at the post office on receipt. The Cape Government Gazette twice in _November 1864
carried warning about the use of revenue stamps to pay postage. 
