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.
