Two foreign postcards

The earliest known picture postcard sent from North Borneo was dated 3 Feb 1903. The card and the scene depicted was from the Philippines. This was originally in the Cassels collection.
The following 2 foreign postcards consisted of one outgoing card from the Dutch Indies but used in Kudat and one incoming postcard from Italy.

This postcard shows the residency in Medan, Deli in Sumatra. On the side, it says that the publisher was J Hallermann, Medan. Medan is the fourth largest city in Indonesia located in Northern Sumatra. It was a very important centre for tobacco plantations.

It was sent from Kudat on the 26 AUG 1906 and transited in Jesselton on the 28. It then passed through Singapore on SE 3 on its way to Holland to the well known name of  Van Houten, manager of the Langkon estate. This was a rubber plantation in the the early 20th century located near to Kudat. The name Van Houten also appears on some plagiarised cinderella stamps of North Borneo. Note the Esq after his name. This Dutchman was somewhat anglicised!
But there were probably more than one Van Houten. F Van Houten was the planter and G was probably a relative in Holland. Confusingly, there was also a J Van Houten given as manager of the Langkon estate in a newspaper advert in September 1906. I presume J was the same person as F.
The Langkon estate was originally planted with tobacco under the ownerhip of Houten. This was absorbed by the bigger public company of Langkon North Borneo Rubber Ltd in 1906 with Houten appointed as manager.
There was a glowing report of his competence in the initial company meeting in June of that year. However, by the fifth general meeting of the shareholders in November 1911, he was severely criticised and a new manager was in post.
In March 1911, F Van Houten was mentioned as the manager of  Tungud Rubber Estates Ltd. in Labuk. Apparently, he was appointed to run the estate the previous year but had to close due to the lack of funding as he overextended the initial expenditure provided. He asked the governor for compensation unsuccessfully and was bankrupted.

Some old photographs from the Langkon Estate. One has the impression that estates like this were mini self sufficient towns and communities.

A colour picture postcard from Siena in Italy to F Philippe in Sandakan. F Philippe was the correspondent name used by Philippe Bernard Funk. The Italian stamp on the front of the card interestingly has a Singapore cancellation for SE 5 1907 which is also present on the back. Incoming cards to Funk are rather uncommon.
It was originally postmarked in Sinalunga, Siena with a nice square circle cancellation on 11/8/07. It was sent by a Cav. Ferrari, but not the same as Philip von Ferrary who was said to have owned the most complete collection of postal rarities in the early 20th century including the Treskilling Yellow of Sweden and the 1856 one-cent "Black on Magenta" British Guiana.
We have the clearly dated cancellations for Jesselton and Sandakan. The GPO was located at Jesselton which was the main centre for incoming mail except for mail from or via  HK which went directly to Sandakan when bounded for destinations on the east coast.

More views of Sandakan

These two postcards are really nice and gives a flavour of life and what it looked like in the early 1900s.

This is a greenish tinted postcard sent in the middle of 1914. It showed a popular view of Sandakan from a vantage point on Bukit Merah, probably quite near to where the present observation platform is today. It is not far from the Agnes Keith House.
The publisher of the card is unknown. The buildings nowadays are completely different. The clock tower can be seen near the middle of the photo and next to it, the government buildings. Does anybody recognise the ship in the harbour?  I have been reliably informed that the jetty on the right could be Gueritz's folly or the coaling pier. E P Gueritz was one of the governors of North Borneo.
I have seen a rare photograph of this similar scene taken by Osa and Martin Johnson while on their safari to North Borneo in 1920. The area of the coaling pier is no more and is now reclaimed land.

Both these cards were sent on the same day from Sandakan by the same person to different addresses. They have the same format at the back and so came from the same source, probably GB. These two scene are also similarly replicated early in the Funk series of postcards. It is not certain which ones came first as they have similar dates of usage.