Some early Sandakan cancellations

The most common early cancellations came from Sandakan, being the largest settlement and a busy commercial hub. It was the capital between 1883 and 1946.The following were from a small collection that was acquired recently.

This is the Sandakan D4 in crimson red and is common on this particular 1892 overprinted stamp. D4 was in use for 10 years from 1889.

The Sandakan D3 was use for a long time between 1885 and 1903 and is therefore fairly common. Note the month in 2 letters. The circle often appears dotted due to wear.

What a pity that there are a few short perfs at the top of this per12 1883 stamp. But generally, you would be hard pressed to find good all around perfs with adhesives of this issue. Here we have a good D3 in red.

I really like this stamp. It has a very rare combination of the modified 14 bar cancel and Proud's D4 in red on this perf 14 1886 stamp. The 14 bar cancel K2 was modified by cutting groves on the handstamp diagonally. Whatever the reason and the need, I am glad they did it as it produces an infinitely more attractive cancellation.
Proud has a date of 19.12.91 to 26.8.93 but as we can see this is clearly dated earlier on AUG 1891. With this combination postmark, I would not feel the need to purchase a correspondingly expensive cover to illustrate usage. I dare not speculate how much the original cover would have cost as there was still a bit of the original envelope adherent at the back.
Update 09 May 2014
Got this one recently. It is very difficult to find combination cancellations like this. It is almost as good as a cover, I think.

This is a very good example of how the 14 bar cancellation can be modified by cutting groves diagonally across it to achieve a dots effect.

The revenue stamps of 1886

The overprints were said to have been carried about the middle of 1886 in Sandakan at the offices of the Borneo Herald. This was to facilitate the payment of duties of smaller amounts which was hitherto avoided by merchants, traders and others. Till then only high value adhesives of 25c upwards were eligible for use for revenue purposes.

The pen cancellation would have indicated fiscal use of this adhesive in the payment for duty for goods, services etc.

The clear bar cancellation would have indicated postal usage. The position of the first line of the overprint "and" seems variable but exists commonly with the "d" just slightly to the left of the "n" just below. This is clearly shown on my stamp above.

In this borrowed image, the "d" here is almost exactly above the "n" in the overprint below.

Yet another borrowed image where the "d" is placed slightly to the right. So this overprint can exist in at least 3 slightly different variations. Possibly this would also applied to the similarly overprinted ten cent value. The account is in this respect is different from the one in Part 1 of  The Stamps and Postal History of North Borneo. These latter 2 settings are definitely much more uncommon.