A few North Borneo plantation tokens

Collecting these tokens is an expensive hobby. They represent a very important part of North Borneo history which was much neglected by the governing administration. I have no qualms in describing these artefacts as slavery tokens as they were one of the means of controlling indentured workers who were often treated like slaves who were mostly neglected and sometimes punished harshly resulting in many injuries and deaths. This was  basically pushed under the carpet by the government in charge.

Currency shortage was the main excuse used in allowing plantation to issue their own monetary tokens. The reality was that it was a means of labour control. Workers were very often paid entirely with these tokens instead of the official currency or Mexican dollars which can only be used at the shops within the estate. These tokens were completely worthless outside which means there was little chance of the workers running away to seek alternate lives and work. They were trapped and these estates were little more than workhouses and vast prisons.  In 1920 a law for gradual abolition was introduced and the plantation token system was officially abolished in 1924 after many years of widespread exploitation, systemic abuse and mounting criticism.

These are some examples from Tenom Rubber, Labuk Planting Company and Pitas Estate respectively.  The introduction of a large population of Chinese and Javanese workers for the Tenom plantation as well as the nearby large Sapong and Melalap estates led to much resentment in the local Murut population. Vast areas of native lands were also requisitioned and cleared. This resulted in the Rundum Rebellion of 1915. And of course we were told the official side of the story and not how much humiliation and hardship the local Muruts had to endure. However, the rubber industry laid the infrastructure for the modern day diversification of various agricultural products that Tenom is well known for especially the coffee. The denominations for the Tenom tokens were 10c, 50c and $1. 

The Labuk Planting Company operated on the fertile banks of the Labuk River north of Sandakan on the east coast. Instead of the usual tobacco, this company specialised in planting Manila Hemp or abaca which was the world strongest natural fibre and used for making heavy duty marine ropes and fishing nets. This company tokens came in denominations of 10c, 20c, 50c and $1. 

The Pitas and Nicolina Estates were privately owned by a well known German agriculturist, H C Eduard Meyer. He was responsible for breeding and introducing improved varieties of common European staple crops such as wheat, potatoes, barley and oats in Europe. The estate employed a mixture of Javanese and Chinese indentured workers. The Pitas and Nicolina Estates token is very rarely seen. The tokens came in 50c and $1.

This is a well written synopsis that I found on the internet. It was probably written many years ago and was part of the Lam Research Archives but the original internet links no longer exist.

For hobbyists who are seriously collecting North Borneo plantation tokens, this book by A J Lansen might be worth buying but it is only 58 pages long which may reflect the sparse information that is available on this subject. 

Some peculiar perforation patterns in the De La Rue 1964 Sabah overprints

 

This 5c block has only only a single perforation at the side selvedge instead of being perforated all the way to the edge. Normally De La Rue sheets were not perforated at the top and this block of 6 has 2 perforations right at the edge of the top selvedge.

This 5c block is different in having only a single perforation at the top edge of the selvedge above and also perforated through at the side. 

This 6c block shows rows of 6 perforations at the top of the selvedge which are not in line with the normal vertical lines of perforations on this block. 

This $1 block of 4 shows staining of the surrounding white paper with the yellow green ink used for printing the border. It has multiple rows of perforations at the top selvedge with half of them in line with the normal vertical lines of perforation. There is only a single side perforation and this is normal for all the dollar values of this set. It is difficult to know why these extra perforations were done. Were they trials or done by mistake because they do not serve a defined purpose?

The use of fugitive inks in the De La Rue printing of the 1964 Sabah overprints

 

The inks used by De La Rue for printing the 1964 Sabah overprinted issue and perhaps also the reprints for the original North Borneo 1961 stamps can be fugitive. It mostly involved the inks used for printing the border. In the above 20 cent examples, the first stamp on the left has white margins. The second stamp also has white margins and was probably an overprint on returned Waterlow stock. The third and fourth stamps have obvious staining of the surrounding white margins with the blue ink used for the border. The fourth stamp also show partial staining of the attached selvedge above. 

Probably, a significant proportion of the inks used by De La Rue in printing this issue were fugitive. Here are some more examples where the colour inks had spread into the adjacent selvedge. 

The differences between the Waterlow and DLR North Borneo/Sabah printed stamps part 2

 The Printed Sheet Numbers

For the Waterlow stamps, the sheet number is located above stamp 10 on the first row. Here the sheets are perforated all through to the edge of the sheets whereas the bottom margins of Waterlow are not perforated.

These were printed by Thomas De La Rue and the top margins are not perforated whereas the bottom margins of the DLR sheets are. This is the exact opposite to what Waterlow was doing. There are no sheet numbers at this location. They should be there at this top selvedge but I do not know the exact position yet and it could be random.

DLR Reprints of the initial North Borneo 1961 issue

After De La Rue bought the Waterlow printing division around 1961, they were given the original printing plates. In 1962 and 1963, they had to do further reprints to satisfy demand. This was before the 1964 Sabah overprints were issued. It is almost impossible to differentiate between these two companies' printings without the top or bottom margins even though the De La Rue printings usually have a darker shade of colour.

The above are uncommonly found examples. Here we can see these North Borneo stamps have unperforated top margins and perforated bottom margins which are typical of sheets from De La Rue. The 1c block has two numbers at the top which are the printing plate numbers which are not normally present as they were routinely guillotined off after the sheets were printed.

Sabah Overprints on original Waterlow stamps

 

Many sheets of the original Waterlow printing were sent back to De La Rue for the Sabah overprints. On this cover, the block of 5c at the right top corner has been enlarged. These were Waterlow stamps with the top perforated margin which were overprinted SABAH by De La Rue. And above stamp 10 is the Waterlow sheet number and above stamp 9 is the De La Rue sheet number in red. This is a very unusual and rare finding. Apparently, 9000 sheets of the 5c value were returned from North Borneo for the overprint and the majority were the DLR reprints. This Waterlow printed block of 4 would be quite uncommon.

This cover was cancelled at Kuching on 1 JY 64 which was the first day of issue of these overprints. It has a very uncommon combination of North Borneo, Sabah, Sarawak and Malaysia stamps, philatelic of course but you would be extremely hard pressed to find something similar. The North Borneo stamps were actually withdrawn from sale the day before but were valid throughout Malaysia until 1 April 1970.

The differences between the Waterlow and DLR North Borneo/Sabah printed stamps part 1

 The Waterlow Company Imprint

The  company imprint is located just below the bottom row stamps 95 and 96 of the middle two columns of a sheet. It has the company name and the unusual address of London Wall, London EC which is actually a street in the City of London near to the Moorgate and Barbican London Underground stations. The other important characteristic here is the unperforated lower margin of these sheets by Waterlow.

The DLR Company Imprint

The DLR company imprint is located in the same situation as that of Waterlow with a slight differences in distance from the perforated edge even between the DLR sheets themselves. The bottom margins here are perforated in contrast to that of Waterlow. Moreover the depth of these bottom selvedges are individually different in comparison to the precision of Waterlow.

The border and vignette plate numbers

There was only one printing of these stamps by Waterlow and the all use Border 1 and Vignette 1 plates. The numbers are in their corresponding colours and the number on the left under stamp 99 is the border plate number and the right under stamp 100 is the vignette plate number.

For the DLR reprints and the stamps printed for the overprint of the 1c value, a new border plate was made and the plate numbers for this 1c value was 2 - 1. With the overprints new border plates were also made for the 6c and 12c values but for the 6c the border plate number 2 was placed under stamp 92 instead of the usual 99.

The other two features of note with these stamps are firstly the bottom paper margins were perforated through in contrast with the Waterlow printings. And secondly, there is staining of the surrounding white paper with usually the ink used for the border which is not seen in the Waterlow stamps. This aspect will be discussed at a later stage.

The last issue of North Borneo pictorial stamps in 1961

This was the last issue of pictorial stamps by North Borneo as well as the last printing of stamps by Waterlow & Sons for this part of the world. However, the last stamp issued by North Borneo was actually the Freedom From Hunger stamp in 1963 which was part of a commonwealth omnibus arrangement. It was obviously not a local design.

This was a two colour design recess printed in two steps with different printing plates for the border and the vignette. They were based on designs drawn by Chong Yun Fatt who was working at the agricultural department at Jesselton. They were in sheets of 100 watermark Block CA with a setting of 10x10. They were said to be perforated 13 but the long sides of the stamps were perforated nearer to 13.25 

Die Proofs

No die proofs were recorded in the company archives but in 2020, some came onto the market. The 4c, 5c, 12c, $2 and $5 separate border and vignette die proofs were listed. It is unclear as to whether these are the only surviving items or whether there are others squirreled away long term in vaults of certain dealers or collectors.

There were two vignette die proofs for the 4c in the different colours of cobalt blue and bronze green. The duller bronze green was chosen for the final stamp. The possible different and more exciting version has been shown in the above reconstruction.

In 1961, Waterlow was taken over by Purnell & Sons who very soon disposed of a large part of the printing division to another printer, Thomas De La Rue. There was only one printing of these stamps by Waterlow. The numbers are shown in the table above. The original printing plates were passed onto the new owners. 

Further printing of most of the values were carried out by DLR as shown in the above tables to satisfy demand. They were also in sheets of 100 with the same watermark. There were no DLR printings of the 4c, 20c, 35c, 50c, 75c, $5 and $10 without the Sabah overprint. The more frequent issuances of the 1c was due to philatelic demand for sheets and multiples rather than postal use. More 6c was needed as this was the local second class unsealed letter and printed paper rate. The 12c (2x6c) was the local rate as well as the surface rate to Sarawak, Malaya, Singapore and the Imperial rate. There was an ample amount of the 12c from initial Waterlow stock still available. 20c was the airmail rate to Malaya and Singapore from August 1959. More than 4 million 20c stamps were initially printed by Waterlow but more 10c were still printed. The North Borneo stamps of the 1961 set without overprint were withdrawn for sale at the post offices on 30 June 1964 but were still valid until 1 April 1970.

On 16 September 1963, North Borneo gained independence and officially changed its name to Sabah to become a state in the new nation of Malaysia. But it was not until 1 July 1964 that the name Sabah appeared in her stamps and postmarks. Prior to that, the remaining inventory of both the Waterlow and DLR printings were repatriated from North Borneo to Britain and overprinted "SABAH" and further stock were also printed.

There were a lot more of the Sabah overprints than what is in the above because many sheets of stamps were repatriated from the post offices in North Borneo to be overprinted. There are many interesting aspects to these two issues of stamps as well as differences between the Waterlow and De La Rue printings which will be discussed later.

References

Stanway, L C (2023) Malaysia and the Federation of Malaya - Their Stamps & Postal History. Chapter 13 pp 13.1 - 13.7

Stanley Gibbons Ltd (1970) Elizabethan Catalogue of Modern Commonwealth Stamps pp 472, 524

 

Waterlow & Sons and the 1894 set of North Borneo stamps

 

The early stamps of North Borneo between 1883 and 1892 were designed by Thomas Macdonald and printed by Blades, East and Blades in London. These were attractive and iconic but mono colour designs which were not shown at their best by the printing process of lithography.

In 1893, the British North Borneo Company who was perpetually short of money agreed with Waterlow's proposal of designing and printing a set of stamp pictorials for 1894. Selling the territory's stamps to collectors, especially at face value, was a significant part of their income. The earliest stamp pictorials were the Sidney Views from New South Wales, Australia in 1850. Their popularity with collectors really took off with the USA 1869 set of pictorials.  

They initially approach De La Rue for a quotation for a set based on the Company's Arms. They then decided to go to Waterlow & Sons who subsequently secured the contract. The designs were said to be inspired by the Waterlow printed Liberia 1892 set which has some values in a very attractive 2 colour scheme. The North Borneo 1894 set can be regarded as the first full set of pictorials with the border and vignette recess printed separately in two different colours.

The printing company of Waterlow & Sons has a very interesting history and story. In 1810, James Waterlow set up shop in the City of London reproducing legal documents by lithography. He flourished and by 1852 he had diversified into printing stamps, his first issue was the 1852 set British Guiana. As the business progressed, James Waterlow's four sons joined the business and branches opened at Westminster and London Wall. In 1876 James died and a year later the business was split into two. The third son, Sir Sidney founded Waterlow & Sons based at the London Wall. This was the firm that printed this issue. However by 1920, this company and the other company founded by the elder two sons, Waterlow Brothers and Layton were reunited under the name of Waterlow & Sons Limited.  

The 1894 set

This was the first set of North Borneo stamps printed by Waterlow & Sons Ltd while the high values were still printed by Blades. The previous stamps though iconic were largely utilitarian. This 1894 Waterlow series is widely considered as a forerunner of modern pictorial stamps. Moreover, Waterlow used a dual recess printing process which produced stamps in two colours at a high level of detail and crispness that lithography can not match.

The use of exotic subject matter was unprecedented where most issues of British colonial stamps only featured the reigning monarch's head usually in one colour only. This issue featured indigenous wildlife and culture with the Dyak Chief (1c), Sambar Stag (2c), Sago Palm (3c), Great Argus Pheasant (5c), Estuarine Crocodile (12c) and Mount Kinabalu (18c) besides the Coat of Arms in 6c and 24c stamps. The subject material in the vignettes were printed separately from the surrounding borders. In a bold and modern move for the Victorian era, the designers allowed parts of the image to break through the surrounding frame or border. In the 5c stamp, the tail feathers of the Great Argus Pheasant stretched into the frame above while the tail of the Estuarine Crocodile lashed out into the border on the left side.  

5c with part Gayah cancellation and 12c double postage due

These are the details of the engravers and the die proof numbers and colours which are in the records of Waterlow & Sons. This among many other records were discovered in 1981. The total number of stamps printed for each value were:

1c five printings 600,000

2c four printings 440,000

3c three printings 360,000

5c two printings 285,000

6c two printings 280,000

8c two printings 260,000

12c one printing 200,000

18c one printing 200,000

24c one printing 200,000 

These beautiful Waterlow designs were very popular globally with collectors and large amounts of these stamps were cancelled to order (CTO) with the 14 bar bar cancellation to be sold at low prices. I think the figures given above are not a true reflection of the actual amount of stamps printed as there are vast amounts of these CTO stamps in existence.

The following 1897 set of pictorials were also designed and printed by Waterlow & Sons. The designs and themes are similar to the 1894 set with additional values and corrections made to include native script and Chinese characters in the added side tablets. This is a more beautiful set especially with the additional values of 10c with the sun bear and the really pretty 16c with a train running by a river in the countryside.  

Waterlow & Sons continued to design and print stamps for North Borneo until they were sold and the postal part of the business taken over by De La Rue in 1961. One of the significant highlights was the 50th Anniversary of the granting of the Royal Charter issue in 1931. This set of 8 stamps are among the most beautiful stamps of the colonial period.

Some North Borneo fiscal cancellations

 

The collecting of fiscal cancellations of North Borneo is now quite popular. Once upon a time, it was possible to purchase these stamps at a fraction of the normal price but no longer. Here are some nice cancellations, some of which have been reconstructed.

Elopura was the name give by its founder, William Pryer for Sandakan. But it soon reverted to its traditional name which was used for the original settlement on Timbang island deep inside Sandakan Bay which was also known as Bandar German or German Town due to the presence of early German traders. The original Elopura cancellation was used for some of the earliest of Sandakan covers in 1884. It had the prefix A or no prefix. This prefix P type was reintroduced as a fiscal cancellation in 1889 and 1890.

Marudu or Marudo or even Malloodoo was an old settlement in the Kudat area dating from the 15th century. Its interesting history has been written elsewhere on this blog. It is worth your while checking it all by using the search box at the top left of this page. Here we can see the original cancellation with Marudo had been modified to the accepted spelling of Marudu by slicing off the top part of the last letter of the fiscal chop.

This is a nice looking cancellation of the Government Of North Borneo Jesselton. This 1912 overprinted $5  is worth quite a bit mint or postally used. These large official fiscal cancels usually have the country's coat of arms. 

This is the cancellation in blue of the Government Of North Borneo Judicial Department. There are a few different governmental cancellations like this with the coat of arms in the middle. They are very attractive in contrast to most postal cancellations.

The Residency of Kudat chop was a very interesting fiscal cancellation from Kudat which was also used as a postal cancel before the very first postal cancellers arrived in 1884. I think this was used in 1883 and the Singapore transit cancellation confirms that it was used postally.

This is a very nice cancellation in blue which is seldom seen. It was used at the Registrar's Office at Sandakan.

The Residency of Sillam looks stunning in red. Somehow this small place on the east coast near Lahad Datu has some of the most sought after of cancellations. Its intaglio postal seal in both red and blue is also very beautiful. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the research site for growing tobacco and other cash crops. In recent times, efforts are focused on restoring coastal ecosystems from the damage that occurred as a result of logging and oil palm cultivation in the area. The aim is to restore and increase biodiversity.