Some North Borneo Postage Dues of interest

 

I have managed to acquire some interesting PDs in the previous few months that I can share here. In addition, I have included a few others which I have not had the reason to include on this blog. What little information that is pertinent would be included but the enjoyment should largely be visual.

These are two PDs from 1902 British Protectorate issue which has the overprint vertically instead of horizontally. They are significantly more valuable especially the 2c and it was also very uncommonly cancelled at Tawau. The other values in this short set includes the 5c, 8c and 24c stamps.

The Lahad Datu cancellation on a PD is not that uncommon but it is difficult to get a full postmark on a single stamp. The Jesselton GPO cancel is a nice cancel and can be found on some PD memos which are very very expensive and desirable. 

I have only one PD with a TPO cancel and I count myself very very fortunate to get this full on Mail Train cancellation. I am not still clear how this went about as the charges for postage due on underpaid mail was usually paid at an actual post office unless there were facilities on the train to effect this especially on train stops like Papar which did not get a post office until after the war. Beaufort is along the railway and its cancellation on PD is quite uncommon. These are Beaufort D3 and D4 cancellations. 

The 1c of the British Protectorate PD issue has a variety with a raised stop or period. It is nice to have in pair with a stamp with the normal stop as shown here. The two 3c PDS shown are from an immediate earlier issue. These 2 stamps have the local overprint which has a stop after DUE and in both these examples, the stop is raised. This variety is not yet included in the catalogue.

Here, we have the double overprints. North Borneo PDs come with so many varieties and different issued stamps that one has to conclude that some degree of contriving was involved. Nonetheless, they are still interesting to collect and do not come cheap. The 3c was included in a lot that I obtained at auction. One of the 12c was bought quite cheaply on Ebay being unnoticed in a mixed PD lot. 

 

And lastly, we have the very uncommon variety of the overprint reading downwards and two normal copies with nice full on Jesselton cancels.

 

GB letter census mark on NB covers

 

The great thing about philately is there is always something new to learn. Recently, I bought a North Borneo cover with a black square diamond mark on the front. I am grateful to the vendor who is very knowledgeable and he directed me to where I can find further information. 

This cover was sent by Harrisons & Crosfield to GB on 10 OC 63. At independence on 31 August 1963, the name North Borneo was changed to Sabah and it became part of Malaysia on the following 16 September. So this is an early cover from Sabah as part of Malaysia before Sabah overprints and postal handstamps were issued.

Now, back to the census mark. This is usually in black and relatively rare in red. This was applied at a GB post office when a census of all mail passing through was carried out. This was normally in the month of October and sometimes in November. This is for both internal and external mail from 1922 to 1985. It was used after 1985 but not for census purposes. The following image is taken from the Stampboard thread which explains it very well.

 

This should be an uncommon one from Field Post Office 766 Labuan. The date is not clear but is probably 12 OC 1965

References:

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50015

http://www.vicstamps.com/displays/postal_census/postal_census.html