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.
No comments:
Post a Comment