Four swallows a summer make? CENT8 variety

You probably would have heard of the expression "one swallow does not a summer make". Curiously, it seem that this was an expression by the Greek philosopher Aristotle(384 BC-322 BC). The original was "One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy". Nowadays, it usually means "A single instance of something is just that; it doesn't make a trend."

However, there are 4 good examples to prove that this interesting error is not a one off. It is either from a damaged surcharge device or the numeral 8 was put in error instead of a S. In order to know whether this was a fixed error I need to examine a whole sheet or at least a large part sheet but has not had the opportunity to be able to do so.  

These examples are less convincing but the 5c stamp is quite close.

Some more stamps and cancellations

This is also a flaw that has been known since the 1970s but somehow not deserved a listing. The zero in 10 was damaged on the printing plate to give rise to this constant flaw in the transfer B printing. It is found on stamp 46 on a sheet of 50. It was used with a 17 or 19 bar Sandakan cancellation and also has the China Borneo Co Ltd company chop on 14 SEP 91. This 6c on 10c surcharged adhesive was issued in 1891.

This is again from the same 1891 issue and a has a clear 17 or 19 bar cancellation. These 2 bar cancellations have very similar dimensions and are probably from the same handstamp with the small end bars of the 19 bar cancel not showing clearly or fallen off/damaged with repeated use. I am very curious about the additional cancel in violet with an interesting shape, most certainly another company chop. 

The high values genuinely used with a bar cancel are rather uncommon. This 1888 50c stamp has a part 17 bar cancel. There are 9 bars visible here. The 17/19 bar cancellation is longer and wider than the 14 bar CTO cancel. Some of the high values have genuinely used 14 bar cancellations but it would be impossible to tell on a lone stamp.

This 1909 adhesive has the Labuan D10 cancel with code C with a date of 8 JY 1925. By this time, Labuan was part of Straits Settlements. This therefore represents paquebot use for mail posted on sea craft on its way to Labuan. By the way, we are down to one solitary surviving middle aged female rhino in North Borneo/Sabah. What a complete mess! 

Update Our only rhino died on 23 November. No more rhinos in Sabah and a few left in Indonesian Borneo, Kalimantan. But lots of forest burns there.

This is the same situation here but we have a Labuan D10 code E and dated 3 JN 1929. Code Es are elusive but are disproportionally found more on North Borneo stamps without a clear explanation yet. 

Some stamps and cancellations

The Sarawak Specialists' Society has 2 general meetings a year where we socialise and share our philatelic knowledge. The auction is normally the big draw. The meeting usually starts with a display of recent acquisitions but it can also include old material not shown before. This session is the most exciting because it often contains items including new discoveries or items which other members may not have seen before. A few weeks ago at the AGM, I managed to show a few good things. I am including one of them here and may show the others once they have made their debut in the Sarawak Journal.

What we have is a 1890 2c on 25c stamp with an unusual combination of a beautiful red "socked on the nose" SON or bulleye Sandakan D3 and a 19 bar cancellations. The date shown in the negative image is 19 AUG 1890. We do not know the precise date of issue the Stanley Gibbons catalogue has a date of December 1890. This is therefore a new earlier date. 

This is the one that I showed at at our society AGM, the smoke ring flaw on SG1. It is well documented since the 1970s and is present on a Transfer B sheet of 50 as the third stamp on the fourth row, R4/3 or stamp 33. I would consider it rather spectacular compared to the other varieties which gained a listing recently.

I got this one at our recent AGM auction. Any Mempakul cancellation on a postage due stamp is very very uncommon. I have not seen one with a Mempakul cds. This is K1, the thick 7 bar cancellation and only the second one that I have seen. Our auctioneer of many many years experience had only seen 3 copies so far.  

I had this for a few years now. Again this must be incredibly uncommon. A Labuan Crown stamp used at nearby Mempakul. Labuan stamps were eligible for use in North Borneo between 1890 and 1906. This was mostly likely on a cover as I have 2 another similar copies from the same sale. 

The earliest known international airmail cover from North Borneo

This cover is earlier than the dates recorded by Proud and Robson Lowe of  July 1932 and 2 November 1931 respectively. It was sent soon after after the issuance of the 1931 50th Anniversary adhesives. 

The post date was 30 March 1931 with transit cds of Singapore 6 Ap 1931 and Penang 7 Ap 1931. It was franked to a total of 28c with three very attractive 1931 Anniversary stamps but underpaid for registration purposes. It bears the Sandakan N Reg label for 1931 as well as a normal By Air Mail/Par Avion label. It also has the very uncommonly seen use the AIR MAIL to INDIA label on cover. At the very top, there is the typed instruction, BY AIR MAIL via Karachi-London  route.

Being one of the very first letters to be sent by mail from North Borneo, the postal clerk at Sandakan probably had not received the exact rates yet. The airmail rate should have been 6c Imperial rate for the first oz, 12c registration and an Air Fee of 20c which gave a total of 38c. It was underpaid by 10c and was treated as ordinary mail in Britain and hence there was no arrival registration GB backstamp. 

The journey would have started with boat to Singapore, train to Penang, boat to India, overland by train to Karachi before being flown by stages to arrive at Croydon near London. Croydon was the world's first international airport, built 1928 and closed down in 1959. In the month after this cover, Imperial Airways started flying from London to Darwin in Australia.  

The British North Borneo Herald issue of 17 August 1931 has the following interesting article on page 148:

MAGIC OF THE AIR-MAIL. ENGLAND TO INDIA IN FIVE DAYS.

By HARRY HARPER

An experience to linger in one's memory is to fly as a passenger over that great air-mail route which is operated by Imperial Airways between England and India. By the accelerated time schedule which will be in operation this summer, one will ascend from London on Saturday morning and be in India on the following Thursday, having flown 5,000 miles above land and sea, with panoramas which will enthrall you unfolding themselves beneath your outlook window.

It seems more like magic than reality to be able to leave London on Saturday morning and to be in Alexandria on the following Monday; to alight at Baghdad on Tuesday evening; and to reach India by Thursday afternoon. Yet such apparent miracles as these, the fruit of organisation and of operating experience, are now being accomplished regularly as a matter of daily routine.

Passengers bound for India by air assemble on Saturday morning at Airways House, London. Then, after your passports have been examined and your luggage taken charge of by airway porters, you are escorted to waiting ears and driven to the air-station at Croydon. Taking your armchair seat in one of the powerful Armstrong Siddeley passenger-planes of Imperial Airways, you ascend at 8.30 a.m. and sweep over Kent to the sea-coast, passing swiftly above the Channel on your way to Paris.

After a brief halt at Le Bourget, the Paris airport, your pilot steers for Basle, beautiful views lying below, a panorama of mighty mountains and fertile valleys. Then the city of Basle, where the Rhine makes an almost right-angle turn, is reached. On the east side of the city lies the aerodrome, where at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon your air express alights.

Now, for a brief spell, you desert airway for railway, taking your place in a sleeping-car train and travelling, throughout the night to Genoa, which you reach on Sunday morning. At Genoa you find awaiting you one of the powerful multi-engined flying-boats of Imperial Airways. In this, on Sunday morning, you ascend and fly down the Italian coast via Naples to Corfu, where you alight that same evening.

Early on Monday morning you are on the wing again, steering for Athens and Crete, with wonderful views below, and on above the Mediterranean to Alexandria, where you alight at 4.30 p.m. on Monday afternoon, the seaplane base being only a short distance from the Royal Palace of Ras-el-Tin. Changing again from flying-boat to aeroplane, you obtain a fascinating glimpse of Cairo, while after this comes a wonderful aerial view of the Suez Canal. From your lofty view-point you can see not only the end of the Canal at Port Said, but also the other end in the Gulf of Suez.

Soon your "magic carpet" has carried you over the Sinai desert to Gaza. On again, fresh wonders greet you, the roundtopped hills of Judah ; Bethlehem on your left; and Jerusalem on a hill beyond. Then you have an impressive, swiftly-glimpsed panorama of the Dead Sea which, it has been said, "looks like the bottom of the world" when viewed from a height of about 5,000 feet. From here you pass to Rutbah Wells, romantic desert station, and on towards Baghdad, crossing above the river Euphrates. Soon after this you find yourself over Baghdad, " Jewel of the East " , and as you glide down you catch a passing glimpse of the golden domes of the Kad-i-Main Mosque, and of the narrow streets and date gardens of the city.

Early on Wednesday morning you are in the air again, passing over that wonderful Arch of Ctesiphon and approaching the legendary site of the garden of Eden. After this, from Basra on to Bushire, you see a transition from the tropical basin of the river system to the volcanic mountain-ranges of Persia. Flying via Lingeh, you reach and alight on Wednesday evening at Jask, where there is a cable and telegraph station of the Indo-European Telegraph Company.

Ascending again on Thursday, you pass high above mountains and vast stretches of sand. Then, presently, you find yourself nearing the harbour and port of Karachi. Your air express passes to the north of the town, and on to the commercial air station which lies inland. It is at  3.30 pm on Thursday that your air express glides down at Karachi. You have flown from England to India in exactly 5 days 2 hours 35 minutes. A hundred years ago it was thought wonderful when one of the old sailing ships made a voyage between England and India in not more than 91 days, Five days as compared with ninety-one days ! Or, to contrast the aerial mail with the fastest existing surface transport, 5 days as compared with 15 days. Such apparent miracles are possible only with the modern aircraft, which wings its way unhindered above sea, mountains, forests, or deserts. On Friday morning the air-mail goes on via Hyderabad and Jodhpur to Delhi, reaching there at 2.40 p.m. So your aerial journey ends. You have seen the world from the new and fascinating view point of the traveller who flies, and you have enjoyed a personal experience which will convince you, if you need convincing, that the long-distance travel of the future must leave the surface of land and sea and make its swift progress through the air.

London-Paris-Basle-Genoa-Corfu-Alexandria-Baghdad-Jask-Karachi route which can be traced on the map below.

Armstrong Whitworth biplane powered by 3 Sidderley "Jaguar" engines for the first part of the journey from Croydon to Genoa - Imperial Airways archives.

Short Brothers S17 Kent four engine flying boat which can accommodate 15 passengers for the journey from Genoa to Alexandria.

A combination cover and some aspects of Kudat

This week, I am going to show readers an early combination cover from Kudat. Additionally, I was in Sabah recently and was able to make a brief visit there. Kudat was the early capital of North Borneo between 1882 and 1883 even though it was founded in December 1881. Situated near the northern most part of the country, the hopes that steamers sailing between Europe and China would call, failed to materialise. Sandakan, growing very much larger, with a rich hinterland became the capital in early 1884. Today, it remains very much a sleepy place where life drifts by very slowly. Its many nearby beautiful beaches should make it a peaceful retreat from the hustle bustle of the present state capital of Kota Kinabalu.

1883 2c plated Transfer B stamp 46 or R4/6

Between 1883 and 1891 before North Borneo joined the Universal Postal Union, the local adhesives were only valid as far as Labuan, the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong. Beyond that, additional postage using stamps from the forwarding countries would be required. About 30 or more of these North Borneo/Straits Settlements covers have survived.  

This 1887 combination cover has the unique combination of Proud D2 in pink as well as K1, the 13 bar cancellation, also in pink. It has the rate of 2c+8c to Samarang in north Java. Samarang was an important port under Dutch colonial rule serving the many tobacco plantations in the region. Kudat was the capital of North Borneo until early 1884.  J C Teves had been visiting North Borneo looking for land suitable for growing tobacco. The sender was G L Davies, the then resident of Kudat. 

The back stamps gave an indication of the journey taken by this cover to arrive at its destination. It was posted on 15 JA 1887 and arrived at Singapore on JA 27 87 and passed onto the Nederlands Indies Postal Agency the same day. It went in stages by the local KPM line first to Surabaya, 1 2 1887 and arrived at Samarang on 2 2 1887. 

 Kudat Esplanade

Kudat Clock Tower

Some nice local seafood of prawns and spicy fish at Sungai Wang restaurant.

Tip of Borneo, northwest of Kudat

Kelambu Beach paradise, south of Tip of Borneo. Why do people have to leave their rubbish here?

Tiny quiet Kudat Airport, no scanner, manual body and luggage search.

MASwings De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, a 9 sitter and only 2 flights a week to Sandakan.

A share certificate of the British North Borneo Company

This is not an easy item to come by. As illustrated above, the company was incorporated by Royal Charter on 1 November 1881. This share certificate was issued in 1916 and I wonder whether the format was same as the very first certificates issued in 1881. It is rather interesting to see at the very top that liquidation of the company was not completed by May 1951. After the devastation from Japanese Occupation, the company was not financially unable to rebuild the country. They gave up the charter and the company was officially dissolved in June 1946 on North Borneo becoming a crown colony. 

The signatories of the directors on this certificate were Vice Admiral Sir Bouverie Clark, KCB and the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone. The secretary was Harington G Forbes. In case you wonder how I manage to discipher the signatures, I do have a copy of the North Borneo Handbook issued in 1921 with these details.

Labuan D10 cancellation time codes A to E

18 AU 1913 - 6 NO 1941

Labuan D10 was used exclusively during the period when Labuan was administered by the Straits Settlements from October 1906 and until Japanese occupation in 3 January 1942. It was possibly used during early occupation as well. It is Straits type cancellation with a letter code to signify the time of day it was cancelled. The letter A was probably used early in the morning and E near the time of closing but it was unlikely the rule was adhered to strictly. For some time, there was speculation regarding the significance of these letter codes. One only has to look across the South China Sea to the Straits Settlements to get the answer. After all, it was administered by the Straits Settlements.

These items have the type A code and it is a coincidence 3 of them were used in October. The postage due should be uncommon and on cover or memo would cost a fair sum of money. The 35c stamp was probably used on an airmail letter to Europe with Imperial airways. 35c was the surcharge to GB and Europe. Rates were not published until January 1934 but I have good reasons to believe that this service was already operational from Borneo in 1931. The 1c+3c piece was the letter rate to GB in 1913. 

These have the code B. The Brunei stamp represents paquebot mail for items posted on the regular mail boat between Brunei and Labuan as a matter of expediency. 3c was the Brunei postcard  rate as it joined UPU on 1 February 1916. The  corresponding UPU rate for Labuan was 2c.

These show the time code C. Not shown here are possible variations eg inverted time code letter or the various components of the date.

This is the code D including a nice multiple of a strip of 5 of the 1c 1921 Straits Settlements issue. 5c was the Labuan Malayan letter rate between 1922 and 1925. 

The letter E is supposed to be quite uncommon but somehow I manage to find 3 examples. The North Borneo pair was likely used in paquebot mail from the south western part of the country, for instance, Mempakul, Sipitang, Menumbok etc going through Labuan. It could also be Tenom or Beaufort when there was an interruption in the train service. 12c was the NB foreign letter rate from 1 October 1919.

Another variation is the complete omission of the time code altogether. This is not a good example as the rest of the postmark is quite faint anyway. 

North Borneo 1891 surcharge issue

The 6c surcharges were made as a result of changes in postal rates. In April 1891, the postcard rate to UK and other countries in the UPU was set at 6c but this only lasted for 3 months before it was reduced to 3c. But also at this later date the normal overseas letter rate was reduced from 8c to 6c. The registration fee was also set at 6c. So these provisionals were well justified unlike so many other overprints from North Borneo. The 8c and the 10c stamps from the 1886 and 1888 issues were used. These were overprinted locally? with a series of errors. I am some way in completing the set with its errors but to achieve it fully is financially not an option. 

The first stamp of this set, SG 54 used the 8c value from the 1886 "postage below" set. Apparently, only one sheet of 50 was overprinted and this accounts for its rarity and the high catalogue value. Beware there are various fakes in existence, some fairly recent. The best way is to compare the overprint with the same one on the cheaper stamps of this set. All the authentic examples that I have seen have full dark ink. The only error on this stamp is the large "S" located on stamp 19 or the 9th stamp on the second row, SG 54a. This is unique and it is the most expensive stamp from North Borneo. It was last publicly sold in 2011 in the Walter Bickly auction by Spink in 2011 and before that in 1965 by Robson Lowe Ltd. The most expensive stamp from North Borneo used to be the imperforate in between a horizontal pair of SG1. There are more than one example including an item in the Royal collection, I think the reason why it is more expensive is SG 54a has surface damage to the stamp.  

This is SG 55, the 6c overprint on the 8c from the postage & revenue issue. The used examples show the Sandakan 19 bar, Labuan 9 bar and the Sandakan dotted modified 14 bar cancellations respectively. 

These are the used and mint examples with the surcharge inverted. This error is located on stamp 44 of the sheet. 

This a slightly defective example of the error with "cetns" located on stamp 27. Providence P  K Cassels. 

These are mint and used examples with a large "S" in the surcharge located on stamps 19 and 27 of the sheet of 100.

This is the surcharged 10c from the 1886 "postage below" issue with Kudat A cancel, mint copy and a most unusual still unexplained cancellation.  

This is a mint example of the large "S" in the surcharge, again located on stamps 19 and 27. Mint examples of this set are usually without gum. 

These are both mint examples of the surcharge on the 10c adhesive from the 1888 issue. That issue listed 2 shades, blue and dull blue. The surcharged set only listed the dull blue shade. The second stamp is the unlisted blue shade of this set which surprisingly is also not mentioned in the North Borneo handbook. 

Lastly but not least, this is a mint copy of the error with a large "S", again with stamps 19 and 27. It has a fairly high catalogue value compared to used and is normally without gum. I have shown here almost £9000 of stamps according to the values using the SG 2017 catalogue but one can buy them in real life for a lot less.