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5 Pounds
| Issuer | Paymaster, Border Scouts, Upington |
|---|---|
| Year | 1902 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | A wartime emergency issue printed in red ink on plain linen fabric, with the heading ISSUED BY PAYMASTER B.S. UPINGTON in letterpress at the top. A circular official stamp vignette appears at the lower left, and the body of the note is completed in manuscript, stating the obligation to pay the bearer the sum of Five Pounds for pay, with a handwritten authorization and the major's signature below. The date 1.2.02 is inscribed in the upper right corner. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | ISSUED BY PAYMASTER B.S. UPINGTON Pay to bearer The sum of (Five pounds) for pay |
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| Comments |
One of the most localized emergency issues of the entire Anglo-Boer War period, this note was produced by the Paymaster of the Border Scouts at Upington — a remote Northern Cape garrison town on the Orange River, far from any conventional banking infrastructure. The Border Scouts were a colonial irregular unit raised to patrol the northwestern frontier, and their paymaster operated essentially without formal treasury support.
The linen construction is not decorative — paper simply wasn't available. Hand-written or rubber-stamped details on cloth were the functional solution when a unit needed to pay men and could not wait for printed stock from Cape Town.
Pick 716 is among the rarest South African military emergency issues, with surviving examples numbering in single digits.