Friday 31 December 2021

A Qantas cover from Sandakan to Australia in 1937

 

Prewar Qantas covers from British Borneo are difficult to find. The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd or Qantas in short was formed in 1920. It was  initially a flying taxi service and then obtained contracts in 1922 for delivering mail to remote towns in Queensland and in 1928 as part of the "Flying Doctor" service throughout Queensland and North Australia.


A linkup with Imperial Airways was forged in 1931 with the start of an experimental airmail service between GB and Australia in April of the same year with the mail continuing by sea from Karachi until the flights were extended formally to Singapore in December 1933. The Darwin to Brisbane flight stage was allocated to Qantas with the distribution of mail further along by Butler Air Transport and Australia National Airways.

In Jan 1934, Qantas and Imperial jointly formed Qantas Empire Airways Ltd (QEA), the predecessor of present day Qantas Airways with regular services between Brisbane to Darwin. After the first experimental flights in 1931, it was not until 8 December 1934 that the Empire Air Service was extended formally from Brisbane via various stopovers to Singapore to connect with the Imperial Airways service to GB. Fare paying passengers were carried over the entire route from April 1935.

 Initially, Imperial Airways flew the route from Croydon to Singapore and then carried on to Darwin and  due to problems with some of their planes, QEA took over from Darwin to Brisbane. And QEA had sole responsibility for the Singapore to Brisbane section a month later. With the advent of the flying boat service in June 1938, the route between Singapore and Darwin was flown by an Empire flying boat belonging to QEA. By this time the new base was changed from Brisbane to Sydney.


modified images from nzstamps.org.uk

This cover was sent from Sandakan on 1 FEB 1937 to New South Wales, Australia. It carried the inclusive Imperial Airmail rate of 25c where as the concurrent surface rate was 8c. With the outbreak of war, this was increased to 60c from September 1939 but became 55c in May 1941.

It has backstamps of Jesselton 3 FEB 1937 and Narromine NSW 15 FE 37. So it took more than 2 weeks to reach its destination and was probably not significantly faster than surface mail which cost very much less. This may in part explain the less common use of this service.

The route taken would have included Sandakan via Jesselton to Singapore by sea. And then, it was Singapore-Batavia-Sourabaya-Koepang-Darwin-DalyWaters-Cloncurry-Charlesville by Qantas Empire Airways. At Charlesville, it was flown by Butler Air Transport to Narromine about 800km away before been sent to the nearby town of Dubbo.

The De Havilland DH 86 was the initial plane used for the Singapore-Australia leg of the Empire Air Mail service to Brisbane.


In 1938, the Short-S23 Empire Boat was used from Singapore and the Australian base was changed to Sydney.


Monday 1 November 2021

The Nobata and Sabata Christmas Charity Seals

These are classified as charity labels and also collectively known as cinderella stamps. They were used to seal letters but it is rare to see them actually used on covers. Nobata stands for North Borneo Anti-Tuberculosis Association and after independence it was known as Sabata or Sabah Anti-Tuberculosis Association.

Historically, TB was quite prevalent in Sabah and a top killer in terms of disease. A catholic priest Father J W Roetenberg who was in North Borneo in the late 1940s and early 50s was appalled by the local situation. He campaigned for better treatment and facilities for TB patients by assisting the government's efforts. In 1952, Nobata was formed. ATA or anti-tuberculosis associations have been around since 1904 when they were first started in Denmark with the production and selling of special charity Christmas seals or stamps. The other European countries soon followed and invariably they were associated with promoting awareness and raising funds to support TB causes. The first American Christmas Seal was produced in 1907. 

The Government Printer, Mr V A Spradbrow was the first president of Nobata. Ena Mary, the wife of the last Governor , William A C Goode was also president of Nobata. Other post holders include Tun Fuad Stephens and Tan Sri Richard Lind. 




This series with a very basic design of orchids was the very first issue in 1960. Prior to this, some of the labels from the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis of GB, NAPT were sold in North Borneo. 


These are the 1961 and 1962 issues with better designs of birds and butterflies respectively. There is a double bar cross at the top corner which is known as the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol for the fight against TB which was universally adopted for these labels from various countries after the International Conference on tuberculosis held in Berlin in 1902. 

1963 saw the first issue from newly independent Sabah and again the design comprised 4 different types of orchids. Another dozen issues followed intermittently until 1985. Generally, it is more difficult to find these in complete sheets which I think is much more attractive.


A cover sent from Jesselton to Jamaica on 1 AU 58 taking 2 months to arrive on OC 3 58 for a surface rate of 12c. At the back, 2 charity NAPT labels from GB were used to seal the envelope. It is interesting  to note that the James Town cancellation partly crossed one of the seals. These type of seals on NB or Sabah covers are very uncommon in my experience.




A series of North Borneo postcards

 

The following attractive series of North Borneo postcards does not have a known publisher. There are missing items here as there are about 16 cards in this series. They were very well printed which leads me to suspect it was done in Germany using probably the photogravure method. It has a divided back and this only appeared on NB picture postcards after September 1906. 

The clock tower at Sandakan was damaged but still standing after liberation from Japanese Occupation but unfortunately the powers be decided to demolish this historic monument. 

This scene was almost certainly taken from the Leila Road side of town. If it were Buli Sim Sim, I would have expected at least a glimpse of Berhala Is.

This looks like a grand big building but there was no trace of it after the war.


The prewar Sandakan Hotel  was the haunt of many an expatriate. The location is where the present police station is situated. It was destroyed during the war. 

This is the mild incline on the right side of the present Harrisons and Crosfield building which leads to the old government administrative offices. Sandakan Hotel can be seen at the far end.
  

The back of the postcard without any trace of the origin or publisher and has been arbitrarily described as "thick T" in contrast to the "thin T" which were printed in England.


Tuesday 3 August 2021

Some North Borneo Postage Dues of interest

 

I have managed to acquire some interesting PDs in the previous few months that I can share here. In addition, I have included a few others which I have not had the reason to include on this blog. What little information that is pertinent would be included but the enjoyment should largely be visual.


These are two PDs from 1902 British Protectorate issue which has the overprint vertically instead of horizontally. They are significantly more valuable especially the 2c and it was also very uncommonly cancelled at Tawau. The other values in this short set includes the 5c, 8c and 24c stamps.


The Lahad Datu cancellation on a PD is not that uncommon but it is difficult to get a full postmark on a single stamp. The Jesselton GPO cancel is a nice cancel and can be found on some PD memos which are very very expensive and desirable. 




I have only one PD with a TPO cancel and I count myself very very fortunate to get this full on Mail Train cancellation. I am not still clear how this went about as the charges for postage due on underpaid mail was usually paid at an actual post office unless there were facilities on the train to effect this especially on train stops like Papar which did not get a post office until after the war. Beaufort is along the railway and its cancellation on PD is quite uncommon. These are Beaufort D3 and D4 cancellations. 


The 1c of the British Protectorate PD issue has a variety with a raised stop or period. It is nice to have in pair with a stamp with the normal stop as shown here. The two 3c PDS shown are from an immediate earlier issue. These 2 stamps have the local overprint which has a stop after DUE and in both these examples, the stop is raised. This variety is not yet included in the catalogue.



Here, we have the double overprints. North Borneo PDs come with so many varieties and different issued stamps that one has to conclude that some degree of contriving was involved. Nonetheless, they are still interesting to collect and do not come cheap. The 3c was included in a lot that I obtained at auction. One of the 12c was bought quite cheaply on Ebay being unnoticed in a mixed PD lot. 
 


And lastly, we have the very uncommon variety of the overprint reading downwards and two normal copies with nice full on Jesselton cancels.





 


Sunday 25 July 2021

GB letter census mark on NB covers

 

The great thing about philately is there is always something new to learn. Recently, I bought a North Borneo cover with a black square diamond mark on the front. I am grateful to the vendor who is very knowledgeable and he directed me to where I can find further information. 



This cover was sent by Harrisons & Crosfield to GB on 10 OC 63. At independence on 31 August 1963, the name North Borneo was changed to Sabah and it became part of Malaysia on the following 16 September. So this is an early cover from Sabah as part of Malaysia before Sabah overprints and postal handstamps were issued.
Now, back to the census mark. This is usually in black and relatively rare in red. This was applied at a GB post office when a census of all mail passing through was carried out. This was normally in the month of October and sometimes in November. This is for both internal and external mail from 1922 to 1985. It was used after 1985 but not for census purposes. The following image is taken from the Stampboard thread which explains it very well.


 

This should be an uncommon one from Field Post Office 766 Labuan. The date is not clear but is probably 12 OC 1965

References:
https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50015
http://www.vicstamps.com/displays/postal_census/postal_census.html


Sunday 23 May 2021

1889 P&R forgeries

 

Following my zoom presentation of early North Borneo forgeries (https://youtu.be/vMNFV2fjut8), Jon Higgins has been kind enough to let me share his display sheets from 35 years ago. Please do not use the images here without stating their origin. Jon is the vice president and president elect of the Sarawak Specialist's Society.

These forgeries are very profuse and can be present in up to 30% or more of collections of this issue. On eBay, the forgeries are repeatedly being offered as genuine and many unsuspecting buyers keep on buying them as real. Do not get me wrong. Forgeries are worth collecting especially for study but one should pay the correct prices for them. This blog contains a lot of information about these and other forgeries. Readers can use the search box on the upper left of this page to get to these articles easily. 






















Readers who are interested to watch my recent zoom presentation on A Practical Guide to Early North Borneo Forgeries can clicked on the following link: