Brunei JO part 3

I will have to leave the decision as to whether these are the real stuff entirely in the hands of readers. I will also welcome any opinion or advice. It would be rare to have complete sheets of 50 like these. They are rather fragile and large which makes storage and displaying a bit of a problem.
I had to put them in glass frames when I showed them to members of the Sarawak Society at last year's AGM weekend. No individual could expressed a definite opinion even though there was one who was not satisfied with the shade of the ink. But these were ordinary office ink pads where were used originally in the overprinting.

Each overprint was applied individually. One has to admire the precision even though there were minor individual differences in the inking, position and slant of the overprints.
I read somewhere that they were carried out by a group of soldiers or clerks under the strict supervision of a superior officer and would have been physically punished if they dare to make a mistake. Then there was an article that mentioned a particular local postal clerk was responsible.
It was possibly a mixture of these scenarios as the Brunei overprints were said to have been carried out on two separate instances. They were first overprinted in or just before September 1942 as they were first put on sale that month.
Then when the 3 line overprints came out for North Borneo in October 1944, the Brunei were again overprinted but surprisingly with the same 1 line overprint. However, it is also maintained by some that the overprints were made as and to when they were needed between and including these two dates.  

Brunei JO part 2

This 8c grey-black is an uncommon item with a high catalogue valuation. I think there is possibly a faint second or third overprint and that is not in the classification.

A definite CTO item but you would be hard pressed to find another with such a nice Kuala Belait JO cancellation. There is clear indentation at the back from the overprinting device which differentiates it from faked overprints which were hand painted or made with a modern printer.

Brunei JO part 1

The trouble with collecting JO is that there are so many good fakes that even experts fail to agree among themselves. The ones from Sarawak and Brunei are particularly difficult. So I can not vouch with complete confidence what you are seeing in the next few weeks is the real thing. My experience in this subject is limited but I think most of them should have authentic overprints.

The cancellations shown were originated from Kuching unless stated. They are almost certainly cancelled to order. The question is whether they were applied after the war. It was quite possible that the datestamp with the various date slugs and the devices used for the overprints fell into the wrong hands in the chaos at the end of the occupation.

The 4c orange on the right has the cancellation from Brunei Town and the overprint is the so described "blue" as compared to the usual violet and is presently unclassified by Stanley Gibbons but given a small premium in Steven Tan's standard catalogue on Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

The bottom item is the unused red overprint. They were apparently trial overprints not for normal postal use but they are still available cancelled by CTO.

The bit of writing in the middle item looked very familiar and of course it is the same as this cover which was in a posting on this blog some time ago. Looks like there were a few enterprising individuals who were manufacturing these covers. Note the recurring dates of 2/9/2605 and 4/9/2605.

Some of the higher values again with Kuching cancellations apart from the $1 value which has a probably fake or unclassified cancellation as it does not correlate with those in Ted Proud's book. But then no book on this subject can claim to be fully comphrensive.

Brunei fiscal Magistrate Court

Brunei fiscal markings are not well documented. These are the Magistrate's Court, Brunei fiscal cancellations. They are unusual in that they were of the inkless embossed type which was recorded in the Sarawak Journal, a quarterly publication of all the philately aspects of Brunei, Labuan, North Borneo and Sarawak.

It is not so clear on this pair of adhesives. The back view is a bit better. It is quite likely all three adhesives were on the same document. They were all from the 1924-37 issue.

It is definitely a lot better on the $1 adhesive where we have a large part cancellation. On the top part, one could see the mirror image of  the letters "MAGI" and at the bottom "BRUN". In the middle, there is the large British type crown. Note the crayon marks on all 3 items to prevent reuse.

Some more TPO cancellations and covers

I hope readers are not getting fed up of seeing more of my Train Mail collection. Actually, it is the TPO cover right at the bottom of the page which may be of more interest.

The prewar TPO D8 is not commonly seen on the 1939 1c stamp in contrast to the 1c overprinted with "War tax".

A nice trio and a cover with TPO D9 which is not uncommon on this 1954 and also the preceding 1950 George Vl issue. There is a long gap between D8 and D9 which was partly filled by the 5 bar within an oval cancel listed under Jesselton. There were no train mail cancellations postwar recorded in Proud's book until 1950 even though mail might have traveled that way with the limited service available due to war time destruction of bridges and tunnels.

The TPO D10 is more uncommon as it was soon replaced by D11 even though they were used alongside each other for a few months. We have a date here of 11 JUN 62.

This Railway TPO D11 was in use just over a year from July 1962 and then superseded when North Borneo reverted to its old name of Sabah.

This is the Sarawak TPO 6 with a nice and probably rarely seen registration cachet. Plainly philatelic and how else one can obtain this sort of cover in such pristine condition. At the back we have the back stamps of Miri dated 27 FE 73 and KL as well as PJ in Selangor with a date of 1 MAC 73. This service obviously served rural areas around Miri.
Next week there will be a few nice Brunei fiscals and after that a series on Brunei JO including eventually some rare sheets of 50 overprinted.