Letters with cash payment
Letters paid in cash are considered to be the forerunners of postal orders .
The beginnings of the postal order service can be found in France ( 1627 ) and England ( 1792 ). In Germany it was allowed to send money in letters and parcels with the Fahrpost with the guarantee of the post. The bank transfer of funds would have been very difficult due to the very different currency relationships.
In Prussia there was a special tariff in 1848 for shipments with cash payment for amounts up to 25 thalers . The corresponding deposit was noted on the label side of the letter or the empty envelope:
- "Paid on this ..... Taler ..... Silver groschen ..... Pfg."
For this purpose, the acceptance officer issued a “disbursement assignment” , which was permanently attached to the letter and on which the recipient certified receipt of the money. The letters paid in cash were entered individually in cards and documented from place to place like cash letters.
Bavaria followed in 1851 (up to 10 gulden in the whole kingdom , up to 50 gulden for places with main postal expeditions, post offices or postal administrations). Württemberg followed in 1852 (up to 17½ gulden). On the basis of the revised German-Austrian postal association agreement of 1851, the procedure was also introduced in association traffic on July 1, 1852. Only Austria and Luxembourg were mutually exclusive.
Since the costs for this type of sending money were only slightly higher than for cash letters, letters with cash deposits were not very common.
On January 1, 1865, Prussia introduced postal orders instead of letters with cash deposits.