Hong Kong paquebot cancellations on North Borneo stamps

From its foundation in 1879, Sandakan have been closely aligned with Hong Kong in terms of trade and immigration. At one time, Sandakan was described as "Little Hong Kong" not in terms of appearance, I dare say and more due to the Cantonese dialect being widely spoken. This is in contrast to the other towns in North Borneo/Sabah where Hakka is more predominant. Not only that, Hong Kong Cantonese type cuisine (which means little or no chilies) was much in evidence as well as Cantonese customs. The largest and nearly the oldest Chinese trading house in Sandakan and North Borneo for a very long time was Man Woo Loong, ran by a family of brothers originating from Hong Kong. 

Ships went directly between Sandakan and Hong Kong on a roughly monthly basis for most of the years in the first half of the 20th century. The most famous of these was the Mau Sang it went as far as Tawau. These ship was part of the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company which was owned by the biggest Hong Kong based British Company of Jardine Matheson. They made it big initially by having a dominant position in the China opium trade. In addition, the SS Borneo which belonged the German Norddeutscher Lloyd line also ventured between Sandakan and HK. But with the onset of WWl, NDL stopped operating worldwide and the Mau Sang was joined by the Hin Sang from the same company.

The Mau Sang at the pier in Sandakan in the 1930s

This is the Hosking Hong Kong paquebot chop number 1486 which was in use 1917-1925. The 2c and the 25c stamp also has the concurrent HK cancel but the date is not clear.

These are also paquebot use of North Borneo stamps on mail posted on ships on their way to Hong Kong. The procedure in the earlier days was to cancel the stamps with a circular date stamp and then chopped the paquebot cachet elsewhere on the envelope. This procedure was somewhat reversed later on as seen in the stamps earlier on. The 10c overprint has an early date of  OC 7 95 and the similar HK cds on the 4c orangutan has the year only visible of 01. The Victoria Hong Kong cancellations on the 5c and 10c stamps have the dates of  10 SP 06 and 27 JA 04 respectively.

Zamboanga paquebot cancellation on North Borneo stamps

The following stamps have the Zamboanga, Rec'd / Mindanao P.I. cancellation. I have seen the Jolo version on cover with the cancellation on 2 x 5c British Protectorate overprinted North Borneo stamps. These are the Philippines paquebot cancellations with REC'D (Received) in place of PAQUEBOT.

 

dated OCT 19 11 AM 1908

dated 1908 MAY 21 ? A M

dated 1908 NOV 30 8AM

Zamboanga City was founded in the late 12th century and is situated on the island of Mindanao. Its proximity to Jolo in Sulu and the east coast of North Borneo made it an important hinterland and trading partner. The ships of the Norddeutscher Lloyd such as the SS Sabah, Darvel, Labuan and Tringganu made regular round trips from Singapore via Labuan, Jesselton, Kudat and Sandakan to Jolo or Zamboanga bringing along local businessman like W G Darby. The trading house and insurance agency of Behn, Meyer & Co Ltd had offices in Sandakan and Zamboanga.  

On a similar vein, this RECEIVED AT LABUAN cancel was probably an earlier or earliest form of paquebot cancellation from Labuan. Proud listed the earliest formal paquebot cancellation of Labuan from November 1910. You may wonder why the 2c Labuan stamp would receive a local paquebot cancel. Well, Labuan stamps of that period were valid in North Borneo and vice versa because Labuan was under BNBC administration from 1894 to 1906.

A 1933 Tenom District Office receipt

 

These sort of receipts generally did not generally survive as the paper tends to dry out and becomes quite brittle and delicate. $1.50 was received by the Tenom District Office from the Civil District Judge at Singapore. This was the cost of three affidavits supporting the services of Singapore civil summonses. It was signed by Bendos Santos who was probably a clerk working the Tenom District Office. The acting DO was J S Hill. J S Hill was, I presume, a proficient Hakka speaker as he passed the Higher Standard Hakka Examination in October 1933.

This governmental chop is rarely seen as it was not used on stamps and probably only on flimsy receipts like this. It has been reconstructed as seen here from whatever visual clues that are present. Enjoy! 

From an earlier post on this blog, a rare Sanbride postcard view of part of Tenom around 1918.