The North Borneo Sun Bear on stamps

One of our readers has request a post on the Sun Bear stamps. I do apologise for not having submitted any new material for some time. I hope this will be rectified gradually so long there are people who are interested in this blog. 

The Sun Bear first appeared on stamps of North Borneo in 1902 as part of the beautiful 1897-1902 pictorial set printed by Waterlow & Sons. Somehow it was omitted from subsequent stamp sets until the 1961 series printed by both Waterlow and De La Rue. With the name change to Sabah in 1963, the overprinted set appeared in 1964.

These were issued in 1902 and are available in 2 shades. The left is deep brown & slate-iliac and the right is brown & slate blue. The second one is more uncommon but unfortunately, the stamp shown has a fake cancellation, a folly that I committed in my earlier days of collecting. 

Then they were overprinted also in 1902. The two shades are shown here and the third one is a variety that has no stop after "Protectorate"

The postage due is on the overprinted stamp and strangely the original stamp without the "British Protectorate" overprint was not issued. This is the more expensive blue and I probably the other one somewhere.

This is an example of the overprinted 10c stamp on a post card. The most important thing here is the beautifully clear square circle cancellation from Tenom on the stamp. One can see also that on its way to Rome Italy, it passed through Jesselton, Labuan and Singapore.

Again this was sent from Tenom and this time in June 1964 with the 1961 4c stamp. Along side is the triple ring Sabah Malaysia cachet in violet which was used only for the month of June in 1964.

This is a rare example of North Borneo stamps used in a Malayan state. This was sent from Pahang in June 1964. The stamps were valid throughout Malaysia from May 1964.

This is a beautiful cover sent from Beaufort in 1965 with the overprinted stamps. The rate here should have been 12c with a registration fee of 25c and it was 1c overpaid.

This is a very uncommon situation with usage of the 1961 and 1964 stamps together. This is on a postcard to USA.

This is an example of use in Singapore. The postmark is not clear but it should be the Dempsey Road Singapore 10 post office. Okay, I have shown here a variety of Sun Bear stamps from North Borneo/Sabah in different modes of usage and guises.

 

Hong Kong paquebot cancellations on North Borneo stamps

From its foundation in 1879, Sandakan have been closely aligned with Hong Kong in terms of trade and immigration. At one time, Sandakan was described as "Little Hong Kong" not in terms of appearance, I dare say and more due to the Cantonese dialect being widely spoken. This is in contrast to the other towns in North Borneo/Sabah where Hakka is more predominant. Not only that, Hong Kong Cantonese type cuisine (which means little or no chilies) was much in evidence as well as Cantonese customs. The largest and nearly the oldest Chinese trading house in Sandakan and North Borneo for a very long time was Man Woo Loong, ran by a family of brothers originating from Hong Kong. 

Ships went directly between Sandakan and Hong Kong on a roughly monthly basis for most of the years in the first half of the 20th century. The most famous of these was the Mau Sang it went as far as Tawau. These ship was part of the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company which was owned by the biggest Hong Kong based British Company of Jardine Matheson. They made it big initially by having a dominant position in the China opium trade. In addition, the SS Borneo which belonged the German Norddeutscher Lloyd line also ventured between Sandakan and HK. But with the onset of WWl, NDL stopped operating worldwide and the Mau Sang was joined by the Hin Sang from the same company.

The Mau Sang at the pier in Sandakan in the 1930s

This is the Hosking Hong Kong paquebot chop number 1486 which was in use 1917-1925. The 2c and the 25c stamp also has the concurrent HK cancel but the date is not clear.

These are also paquebot use of North Borneo stamps on mail posted on ships on their way to Hong Kong. The procedure in the earlier days was to cancel the stamps with a circular date stamp and then chopped the paquebot cachet elsewhere on the envelope. This procedure was somewhat reversed later on as seen in the stamps earlier on. The 10c overprint has an early date of  OC 7 95 and the similar HK cds on the 4c orangutan has the year only visible of 01. The Victoria Hong Kong cancellations on the 5c and 10c stamps have the dates of  10 SP 06 and 27 JA 04 respectively.