I finally had 2 weeks holiday, a perfect timing to escape the bitter European winter. Although planned at the very last minute, I eventually decided to spend sometime traversing the jungles of Mount Kinabalu and to enjoy the relaxing steammy hot spring at Poring as well as to amazed myself at the Langanan waterfall some 3.5 Km deeper in the jungle from Poring. My holiday in Sabah was very brief (barely a week) so I had no chance to meet the other fellow stamp collectors of which I quite regretted. Nevertheless, everything else went well and the short break was fun and clearly the right choice for me..

Nonetheless, ebay went on as usual. Many new lots listed daily, some are notably rare while many are just the usual 'bread and butter' of stamps business. Some of the interesting lots are as follows:

This near-perfect $10 stamp with nice Sandakan double ring cds attracted 20 bids from 14 bidders. Sold by Philip Malcolm of Principalityauctions, it presents a 'rare example of used' SG86 and ended with a final price of US$203.50. This is certainly a 'cheap' ending price, considering that people nowadays are willing to pay a handsome sum of money even for a $10 with CTO (as Nancy would tell).

Now, all this is assuming that the postmark is genuine, which in this case looks suspicious enough. The date, especially the month and year are unclear. The year is probably 1908, which if true, would be totally a give out to its authenticity because double ring cds of Sandakan are used only starting in 1930s. There are a few other distortions in the year which would be an anomaly if genuine.

These two stamps present a blatant postmark forgery of Jesselton. The date of 20 AU 49 is arranged in horizontal line within the single ring cds, mimicking Jesselton D32. The upper half of the cds is inscribed "JESSELTON" while the lower half is inscribed "NORTH BORNEO". Of note there is a dash before the Jesselton, seen on the 2c stamp. The 8c stamp ended with GBP98 and the 2c stamp with GBP41.

The $1 with the seal of the general court of Labuan was listed in ebay, hidden among other less inspiring North Borneo stamps. It was sold by a French seller from Lyon, and ended with a surprisingly low value of US$67 after 23 bids. The postmark, although appear small in the overall lots, presents a sharp and clear struck, quite clearly showing the two unicorns supporting a shield at the centre with a crown on top. Below there is a Latin inscription 'DIEU ET MON DROIT'. The $10 Labuan stamp on the right, also bearing the same seal is for comparison (not mine), selling at multi thousands US dollars if you're interested. :)

This $2 stamp bears a large violet fiscal cancel, presumed to be THE RESIDENCY OF SILLAM. The cancel is unclear, only showing part of the inscription above (THE RESIDEN..). There is some smudgy appearance of the arms of the company at the centre. Ended with a final price of GBP45 after 8 bids.