Anthony must be a happy man to have in his possession, the two types of Salvaged mails of the Comet crash near Calcutta in 2nd May 1953. There are two types of such cachet, the first one has the right spelling of "Calcutta" while the second one has a wrong spelling of "Galcutta". Both are usually strucked in violet/blue ink.

There is no official record as to how many mails from North Borneo were on board in the ill-fated flight, certainly very few have been seen so far. The topmost cover appeared in ebay on December 2011 with a final price of GBP 182, while the one above appeared in September 2010. There is a water staining on both covers, more notable in the topmost cover - this should perhaps be preserved and should serve as a vivid reminder of the devastating tragedy.

In May 2, 1953, a BOAC comet-1 brought 43 people on board from Calcutta airport to London. It was thought that the plane then crashed 6 minutes after taking off from Calcutta airport due to 'exceptionally' severe tropical storm. This killed all 43 passengers abroad.

Related reading:
Comet Crash near Calcutta 1953
North Borneo Stamps

1. Sandakan Double Ring CDS on $10

The 2 cents stamp with a vertical 8 cents surcharge is among the scarce stamp issue of North Borneo. It is not even listed in Scotts catalogue and at some point in history was thought to be a total fake altogether. It is no doubt however that the issue is genuine and that authentic examples do exist, although a postally used example on cover has never been seen.

The perforation should be 12 and that the overprint should be followed by a full stop.The length of the overprint from "8" to "s" of cents should be 10.5 mm (or to the stop, 11.75mm). The height of the "8" and "C" should be 2.5mm, while the "e", "n" and "s" should be 1.5mm. The letter "t" is 2mm high.

Copies do show some slight variation in alignment and are not usually perfectly vertical. Only stamps of Transfer A were surcharged with this vertical overprint, and that by default all other surcharges appearing in any other transfers must be forgeries. Furthermore, most forgeries of this issue appear on a wrong perforation of 14, and has no stop after the surcharge. The one on the left shown above is listed in ebay with an opening price of GBP 80.00. The one on the right bears a blue undated Sandakan postmark (D2) - Genuine?

SG3: Horizontal 8 cents surcharge

SG3 with AC mark

SG3 with AC mark

SG3 with AC and Singapore P.O. marks

SG3 with Sandakan D2 and Singapore P.O. marks

The 8 cents horizontal surcharge is another rare issue of North Borneo stamp, although perhaps not as scarce as the vertical one. The stamp above on the left appeared in ebay recently and still active. The one on the most right was underpriced at GBP50 and was won by our fellow collector. Three of the stamps bear the blue ink oval "AC" postmark, and three of the stamps bear the Singapore P.O mark as well.

Because the 8 cents definitive stamps were sent in the same case as the second consignment of the 2 cents stamp (transfer B), the provisionals would only be required for about a month, and as such only a small amount of stamps were surcharged. The perforation should be 12. The surcharge is arranged in two lines and consisted of the words "EIGHT CENTS" with the "EIGHT" being 10.5mm in length and "CENTS" being about 10mm, followed by a fullstop. Because of the type setting, there are ten variations of the surcharge in each row across the sheet.

Forgeries exist in a large number, usually on 1886 stamps with perf 14, and mostly on Transfer D. The example below show an interesting forgery :-

Fake and forged stamps are nothing new - they have been around for almost as long as the postage stamp itself. The first stamp was issued in Britain in 1840 while the first classical forgeries began around 1860 - Sperati and Fournier being the two notorious master forgers. Stamps are not only fun collectibles but also form important, high-value commodities. Like many rare or high value items, stamps are targeted by unscrupulous counterfeiters for easy lucrative money from unsuspecting buyers. North Borneo are far from spared.

There is no better place to find a large amounts of fakes/forged stamps than in ebay. The following stamps are fake/forged North Borneo stamps I found in ebay, just for future references:

Historically, before North Borneo joined the Universal Postal Union (U.P.U) in 1st January 1891, its postage stamps were only valid to far as Labuan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Letters going beyond these countries had to be franked with either Labuan, Straits Settlement or Hong Kong stamps, which at that time were available in Sandakan, Gaya and Kudat post offices. As Jesselton was only opened as a new settlement after the burning of Gaya in 1897, I find the Jesselton cancels both on the Perak stamps (SG19a,1891) and on the St. Settlement stamp (SG104, 1892) to be very unusual if genuine. There is no doubt, however, that the blue-ink Sandakan double ring cds may be genuine...

Deltiology is a term referring to the study and collection of postcards. Related closely to philately, collecting postcards is said to be the third largest hobby worldwide (after stamps and coin/banknotes). In those days of 1900s, where internet, email, telephone and even camera are not available, picture postcards would have been the only sensible way of communication between families and friends. The depiction of scenes/old towns/local people in many of those postcards now give us some invaluable historical images and a rough glimpse into the life, activity and scenery of North Borneo in the olden days.

In the last few weeks, several interesting North Borneo postcards have been listed in ebay. As the ancient saying goes 'A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words', here's some of the nice postcards of North Borneo/Labuan to be admired and appreciated:

On September 24, 2011, Spink Singapore held an important philatelic auction on collections from British Southeast Asia. This includes rare items from Sarawak, Malaya and states, Singapore and North Borneo. A total of 1244 lots incorporating postal histories, stamps and collection lots were auctioned and only about 58% (730) of these were sold and the remaining 514 lots remained unsold. A bigger proportion of the lots were from Malaya/Straits Settlement, Sarawak representing about 20% and North Borneo/Labuan approximately 10%. There were negligible Brunei lots in the auction.

Cumulative price realisation (excluding buyer's premium) was £418,612. Spink had a similar auction a year ago with a cumulative price of £584,827 - The Stolz I collection.

The most expensive item in that auction was  a historical cover of 1863 written by the ruler of Sarawak, James Brooke to Ms. Browne in London. It managed to topped the entire auction with a remarkable hammer price of S$40,000 (£20,127). Another interesting postal history, also from Sarawak, was the outstanding 1897 cover from Baram to Vienna which managed to reach the final price of S$29,000 (£14,625). From North Borneo/Labuan, a cover postmarked Silam was the highlight of the auction.

1863 (10 Mar.) envelope written by Rajah Brooke to Mrs Brown in London, marked "Marseilles", bearing India 2a. and 4a. pair (one damaged prior to use) tied by very rare "office of registry/sarawak" double-ring handstamp (Type PS2, earliest recorded date) and additionally cancelled "B/172" in transit at Singapore, showing red crayon "1/2" and London Paid arrival c.d.s. (27.4) with, on reverse, red "singapore/p.o" double-ring d.s.; the envelope with recipient's notation at left.