South Australia - Colonial: 1856-1900.
Transmission form: SC-TO-3.

  
General characteristics:

Heading and notes: Message Form No. 6.
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH SOUTH AUSTRALIA spanning Crest.
Message area: 20 boxes in 5 lines.
Reverse side: 17 lines of 4 boxes taking message to 88 words and numbered at left.
Colours (text & form): Black on cream.
Size of form overall: Varies across the printings - see below.
Size of datestamp box: 32 × 26 mm.
Distinctive characteristics of this form:

South Australian Transmission forms are amongst the rarest of all Australian telegram forms.

The form number has here been set as Type 3 in the expectation that other formats might be revealed.

SC-TO-3A
Printed in January 1890.

SC-TO-3A.

Morgan to Adelaide.
19 February 1894.

Characteristics:

  • size is 218 × 221 mm;
  • heading is 149 mm wide;
  • "ELECTRIC" extends under "FORM" above;
  • heading finishes with a square full stop;
  • this form was distributed bound into Booklets of 100.
    The left edge is serrated and sometimes has part of the form at left;
    The for also has a lower case "b" in the schedule number in the LLC so that 3500b.100 indicated there were 3,500 Booklets printed each of 100 forms.
    The serration to attach the form shown to the original still held in the book can be seen along the entire keft edge.

 
SC-TO-3B
Printed in September 1891.

SC-TO-3B.

Morgan to Milang.
23 February 1894.

Characteristics:

  • size is 223 × 221 mm;
  • heading is 162 mm wide and letters are larger;
  • "ELECTRIC" extends to "No." above;
  • heading finishes with a round full stop;
  • this form was distributed bound into Booklets of 100.
    The left edge is serrated and sometimes has part of the form at left;
    The form also has an upper case "B" in the schedule number in the LLC so that
    1000B100 indicated there were 1,000 Booklets printed each of 100 forms.

 
SC-TO-3
Printed in February 1892.		 SC-TO-3C.

Morgan to Eudunda
(2 February 1894).

Characteristics:

  • size is 193 × 223 mm.
  • heading is 139 mm wide;
  • "ELECTRIC" just reaches to "FORM" above;
  • heading finishes with a square full stop;
  • crest between the word SOUTH and AUSTRALIA has a different, elongated design;
  • no "B" in the schedule number so this form was brined as a separate form not bound in a booklet.
  • on the reverse side, the top line is printed in italics.
Bundles When these forms were discovered, there were two small bundles of forms still tied together with string. They would have been prepared to send to Adelaide for accounting purposes.

Details of use and rarity.

Form
sub-number		 Schedule number Earliest recorded date Rarity rating
TO-3A 3500b.100 - 27-1-90 19 February 1894 at Morgan. RRR
TO-3B 1000B100 - 7-9-91 3 February 1894 at Morgan. RRR
TO-3C 400000 - 1-2-92 2 February 1894 at Morgan. RRR