North Borneo and Labuan stamps cancelled at Brooketon

I have posted some information on Brooketon in a much earlier post. Rather than repeat it again here, you can read it by clicking on here.

A Brooketon cancellation on a North Borneo adhesive is practically hens tooth in rarity. I have only seen a couple so far. Even the Cassels collection which was the most comprehensive North Borneo philatelic collection ever accumulated only had one copy. Well, how did a Sarawak cancellation appeared on a North Borneo stamp? It was probably used on paquebot mail on its way to Kuching in Sarawak via Brooketon. There was a regular boat service between Brooketon, a mining concessionary owned by Rajah Brooke and Kuching. The date on the post mark was 23 MAY (94 most likely).  

There is a post on this blog showing two of my Labuan stamps with the Brooketon cancellation due to paquebot usage. You can read it by clicking here.  I have managed to find a few more since then. They are quite uncommon but less than ones on a Brunei stamp which I still do not possess. The second item on piece is the closest thing we have to a cover. Despite many Sarawak stamps with this cancellation, there is no known cover in existence.

These two were from the Bickley collection but I do not think it was shown in the Spinks sale catalogue. I bought them as a Christmas present for myself, sad! 

There are many Sarawak stamps with the Brooketon cancellation. They maintain their price due to popularity and demand. This one above with the smudged 00 for 1900 is said to be more uncommon. But I think the pre 1900 items are definitely less commonly seen and any on the provisionally overprinted Sarawak stamps are quite hard to find as well. This was the very first Brooketon cancellation that I bought so many years ago.

This is taken from A City Of Many Waters by Peter Blundell published in 1924. He was working for the Island Trading Company.