A postal order or postal note is a type of money order usually intended for sending money through the mail. It is purchased at a post office and is payable at another post office to the named recipient. A fee for the service, known as poundage, is paid by the purchaser. In the United States, this is known as a postal money order. Postal orders are not legal tender, but a type of promissory note, similar to a cheque. History The postal order is a direct descendant of the money order, which had been established by a private company in 1792. During World War I and World War II, British postal orders were temporarily declared legal tender to save paper and labour. Postal orders can be bought and redeemed at post offices in the UK, although a crossed postal order must be paid into a bank account. Until April 2006 they came in fixed denominations though an amount of any value less than the next higher fixed denomination could be produced by adding one or more postage stamps in the space on the postal order that was designated for that purpose, but due to increased popularity they were redesigned to make them more flexible and secure. They now have the payee and value added at the time of purchase, making them more like a cheque. There is a fee for using this form of payment. The maximum value of postal order available is £250.00 with the fee capped at £12.50. Use in other countries The use of postal orders (or postal notes in some countries) was extended to most countries that are now part of the British Commonwealth of Nations, plus to a few foreign countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Thailand. United States United States Postal Money Service were introduced in 1864 by an act on Congress as a way of sending small amounts of money through the mail. By 1865 there were 416 post offices designated as money order offices that had issued money orders to the value of over $1.3 million and by 1882 they has issued orders valued at $113.4 million from 5,491 money order offices. Currently they facially appear as a draft against an account held by the United States Postal Service, and the United States Postal Service requires a purchaser to know, in advance, where presentment of the instrument will occur. Only special, more