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Sendelingsfontein

I have a registered letter, on a pre-printed envelope with 6d pressed stamp, upgraded with 1d. Sent from Zendelingsfontein 19 MAR 1923, via Klerksdorp the same day, to Hanover Germany, arrival 11.4.1923.

Post Office Zendelingsfontein, opened 1.9.1903, place name changed 1.6.1953 in Sendelingsfontein, and closed 8.11.1971. The main post office was Klerksdorp. Is my description correct?

Does anyone know where the village Zendelingfontein is? I think near Klerksdorp. Does anyone have a map, to show ?

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Registered letter

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  • Zendelingfontein-A.jpg-2.jpeg

Klerksdorp

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  • Zendelingfontein-B-2.jpg

Interesting.  ZENDELINGSFONTEIN (Afr. Missionary fountain) was in the Transvaal (today Gauteng). The Head Office was Klerksdorp, so I imagine it was relatively nearby. Today Zendelingsfontein / Sendelingsfontein is a district of Klerksdorp. Zendelingsfontein may not have been a village but a mission station / college /even a farm with its own postal agency. As your letter is addressed to Germany, the possibility is that the missionaries were German. There is a reference on Google to "during the late stages of the South African War, President Steyn, in the company of Generals De Wet and Hertzog, arrived at Zendelingsfontein, then De la Rey's headquarters near Klerksdorp".

Zendelingsfontein is shown on the postal map of Transvaal in 1910 which is reproduced on the end papers of Mathews' Transvaal Philately;  it's about 50 km ESE of Klerksdorp, and NE of Harrisburg.  The same postmark was already in use in 1904: here's a scan of a cover from eBay:

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