Around the world covers that visited North Borneo

These two items are plainly philatelic and contrived by the same person in Scotland UK. Otherwise, it would be impossible to see such beautiful and interesting covers. The process was actually quite complicated and involved cooperation and help from friends and contacts in these countries.

This cover left Edinburg in November 1931 and went through Bermuda, Chile, Dutch West Indies and then North Borneo and from there to Italy and then Scotland.

It also received a Retour instruction as it went through Seattle, USA and then somehow managed to reach North Borneo.

This cover has a more ambitious route. It started from Edinburg in January 1931. It went first to Palestine, a country that no longer exist due to ongoing Middle East conflict. It was then sent to Kenya in Africa and from there to South India. Then it was sent to North Borneo where it was generously franked with five stamps of the beautiful 1931 issue. Fuji was the next port of call and from there to Jamaica and then to Saskatchewan Canada before being returned to Scotland.

Early North Borneo and Labuan Sanbride postcards

About 15 years or more ago before the colour postcards of Borneo were printed by Sanbride, there was a series of monochromic postcards published by F & K Chinn showing Kudat and Labuan and printed by Sanbride. Conceivably, there are others apart from these four here which are the only ones that I have seen so far. Chinn was probably based at Kudat. 

The Kudat Market is depicted here. There is no year date but it should be 1906 or later due to the lack of clear margins around the card where a message is usually scribbled prior to 1906.

Kudat Town and Harbour in 1906

Kudat Town and Harbour 1907

Labuan Government House circa 1906

The card has a divided back for a postcard of North Borneo from 1906. No written message was allowed on this side prior to 1906 or the lower postcard postal rate would have been forfeited.

Along the vertical line were these letters printed to confirmed Sanbride was the printer. This was before the logo with the steeple of St Bride Church on Fleet Street, London was adopted.

Update 9 April 2025

I have found another postcard of this series on the net. They are probably some others.

Update April 2026

Google Gemini AI is really useful and came up with a whole load of information which I can not find anywhere else. Apparently, the Chinns were an Eurasian family based at Kudat who worked in the civil service. Francis Chinn was a Treasury clerk with the BNB civil service and his brother Kenneth was also in the civil service. They later went into private business and F&K Chinn photographers was one of their ventures. They later moved to Labuan. To this day there is a legacy firm in Labuan called F&K Chinn that specialises in accounting, tax and company secretarial work.