Seals of the residencies of Kudat and Silam

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This was a fiscal seal used on government documents and transactions at Kudat which was the initial main seat of administration of North Borneo until it was transferred to Sandakan towards the end of 1883. It was initially in blue but black ink was used later on. The reason was that coloured inks were easily washed away and the stamp reused again fraudulently. Black inks are more resilient in this respect. This was also the case with the Penny Blacks which were initially cancelled with a beautiful red Maltese Cross. Chalk surfaced printing paper was introduced later for better ink retention.  

The British Protectorate stamp would imply prior and post 1901 usage of this seal in black. The 1883 SG3 which was cancelled in blue raised some interesting questions as it also possesses a clear Straits Singapore type cancellation. This would indicate that this seal was also used as a postal cancel, most probably prior to the arrival of postal hand stamps in early 1884.     

This is the seal from Silam (spelled with 2 Ls) which is in a beautiful crimson red colour. It is very much more elusive than the Silam Lion intaglio cancellation. The pair of 1888 50c adhesives gives an approximation of when this seal was used. If any of you can read Jawi, can you tell me what it says in the inscription at the bottom. It is reconstructed and bound to be inaccurate. And also it is possible that Kudat and Sillam seals have different Jawi inscriptions on their respective seals. Though concurrent, I believe there were no similar seals for Sandakan and Gaya. 

North Borneo SG3 with Hong Kong B62 cancellation

The first stamp of North Borneo were issued in March 1883. It was a 2c stamp and very soon it was realised that a higher denominated stamp would be required for mail beyond North Borneo, Labuan and Brunei. 8c was the rate to the Straits Settlements, China and Japan. To save on stock, the 2c stamp was overprinted in late March or early April 1883 initially with "8 CENTS." vertically and then changed almost immediately to "EIGHT CENTS." horizontally. SG2 is therefore a rare stamp with lots of imitations and almost certainly no mint copy exist. We are very lucky with SG3 as it gives us such a plethora of various local and foreign cancellations. 

Even though the stamps arrived from GB in March 1883, the cancellers did not arrive until January 1884. So the earliest cancellations were pencancels usually one or two lines across. They were either red or brown (?Sandakan) or with blue crayon (? Kudat). Used SG2 were all cancelled by blue crayon which implied that they were only used at Kudat only and for a very limited time anyway.             

I have seen this blurred mess of  black lines before on very early used NB stamps. It is only recently that I realised it is the B62 cancellation from Hong Kong. The inference is that this stamp was cancelled at Sandakan with a deep brown pen cancel of 2 lines on its way to China or Japan. The cover transited at HK and received the B62. One make quite clearly the "2" and a bit of the "6" with the enhanced image when compared to a clear B62 on a HK adhesive. This is plated as Transfer A stamp 15 with the Type 4 overprint. The stamps were printed in sheets of 50. This is the 5th stamp on the second row of 10. The "EIGHT CENTS." surcharge was in a row of 10 with each slightly different with respect to the positions of the letters to the ones below.

This is another example, again with 2 deep brown lines and a messy looking black cancel. It is impossible to see any of the B62 but the pattern of the black bars would fit perfectly. This plated as Tranfer A stamp 41 with the Type 5 overprint. Similar looking items from Transfer B, C and transfers D and E (1886 perf 14 ) are all fakes.

This is SG1 which is plated as transfer C stamp 23 or R3/2 with a bar type cancellation which I initially thought was another B62. Transfer C SG1 stamps have a different and lighter shade of brown in comparison to  transfers B and C. They also have better perforations but more plate flaws.

Manipulation of the image reveals disappointingly a 107 bar killer type cancellation. The absence of a North Borneo cancel would suggested use in 1883 even though we would have expected some kind of pen cancel. It was quite likely the post officer missed cancelling this stamp and therefore it received an arrival cancel.  

This is the GB Bradford 107 cancellation and it seems that the NB stamp was used on a postal item to Bradford ? in 1883.