Back to stamps

Well, back to my original affliction of collecting stamps. Initially, it was sets in mint and basic used. Then I became drawn to postmarks. Naturally, that progressed to postal history and covers. There are some who take the extreme view that a mint stamp is not really a stamp but a label until it has gone through the postal process. Mint stamps are also sometimes referred to as adhesives. For this reason, some collectors will only accept used covers. I personally feel that one should collect and study mint and used stamps first before going onto covers.
The stamp above has the rare Jesselton G.P.O. BNB postmark. I had to collect a couple of  bogus Madame Joseph imitations before I obtained this. The distinguishing feature is that there is full stop after each letter of GPO. It is D5 in Proud's classification. This one is in black and it has been recorded in green and also violet. It is particularly valuable when found on a postmaster memo where it had been used to frank a postage due for underpaid letters.
A Sandakan version of the GPO postmark was also thought to exist. If so, there might have been only one copy recorded. Very very rare stuff indeed if that was true.
The General Post Office GPO was for North Borneo was sited initially in Sandakan and then moved to Jesselton in 1906. This would initially seem surprising given Sandakan was the capital and a much bigger place. It was all to do with  geography. Jesselton was and is nearer to the important areas of commerce that NB was dealing with, namely, Singapore and Malaya. Westward was also the shorter route to Britain by sea.
Update There was certainly record of a GPO at Sandakan in 1895 but this was relocated to Jesselton in April 1906. There was a nice PO cachet for Sandakan on government mail though.

This is definitely a fiscal use of the Sandakan D10 BNBC cancellation with the Maltese cross. Not as difficult to find as I previously thought. The Kudat BNBC fiscal cancellation is very much more elusive. There is also a Jesselton BNBC postmark on record even though not listed by Proud and I have not seen one yet.

A nice blue Sandakan D3 postmark but what is also of interest is the second marking. This is probably an arrival postmark. Can someone tell me a place that ends with the letters BO?

Update I have a suggestion for Colombo which would have been a rare destination for NB mail. Thanks.

A dramatic perforation shift in a stamp from the 1888 issue. This is not a forged stamp due to the lack of an extra stroke in the first chinese character on the right  sided column as in forgeries from Fournier and Careme. The placing of the 14 bar cancel could possibly indicate postal use rather than CTO. It looks like this stamp is part of an imperforate pairing from which it had been cut .

Interesting dealer's mark at the back of the stamp. This tends to be on the older stamps and very rarely on a CTO stamp.