Some early Lahad Datu cancellations

 

The Lahad Datu area has a history of native human settlement from as early as the 15th  century. To the east was the pirate settlement of Tunku or Tungku which was obliterated by HMS Kestrel around early November 1879 under the command of F Edwards. After this, a government experimental garden was established at Silam in 1883. Lahad Datu as a township started in November 1897 to service the New Darvel Bay and Segama tobacco plantations in the vicinity. The post office was established at Silam around 1888 was transferred to Lahad Datu in 1897. From the 1897 BNB Herald was found the following notice:

The Lahad Datu post office started off by using the Silam postal seal in blue before the local postal date stamp arrived in January 1898. This Silam is rightly one of the most sought after and coveted of postal postal cancellations from North Borneo and covers command a high price. On stamps, it is very uncommon to get such a good strike. I bought a whole stamp book and fortunately not at a high price just for this stamp. So there are still gems to be found in basic low value collections.

This is Proud's D1 (4 1 98 - 1 8 00). I think the 10c stamp has the year 1900 omitted and is the new latest known date or LKD of D1. The ink colour here is deep violet. The other two were postmarked 1899 and one the Jan one has deep violet ink as well while the Oct item has its cancellation in black.

This is D3 which is not uncommon. The earlier ones in 1903 are also in deep violet. D3 was from 1902 to 1909.

This D4 is the first BNB type. The date here of 14 JAN 1910 is the earliest known date. Proud has it between 22 6 10 and 13 8 12.