I recently stumbled onto this curious, yet amazing document from the Postmaster General of Sarawak to presumably a collector in airmail philately. It first appeared in ebay with an opening bid of  £199.99 on 26 December 2011, and ended with a jaw dropping price of  £515.67 on 3 January 2012 after 5 bids.

We know that in 1930, there was a seaplane expedition to various cities in British Borneo including Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo. The plane started their voyage in Singapore in 26 May 1930 to Kuching. From there they flew to Sibu and Miri on 30th May 1930 before continued on and reached Kuala Belait and Brunei capital on 1st June 1930. They landed in Jesselton on 2nd June 1930.

The Document

The document is written by the Postmaster General of Sarawak as an Officer in Charge of the new Sarawak Airmail chop. There are three marks in the middle of the letter, the left one bears the Seal of Baram, Sarawak circular mark with the PMG's signature and "o-in-c" below it. The middle aspect is affixed with Sarawak's 4c stamp of Brooke and is cancelled with the circular "Air Service" postmark, the left side then bears the air service mark alone.

The document reads:

This is certainly a great document and surely it's an illegal one? :)


Related reading:
North Borneo First Airmail 1930
Brunei First Airmail 1930

Stamp magazine UK recently published a 116-page guide magazine on the 50 Fabulous Stamps of the British Empire. The guide came about for the first time in a celebration of the philatelic achievement of the British Empire.

50 great stamps/issues from 50 different colonies were chosen for us to marvel at their legacy - stamps that combined artistic beauty with eminent practicality with fascinating stories and wonderful rarities.

And of course, Sarawak and North Borneo stamps issues were among the 50 distinctive list.

Queen Victoria's face is perhaps the most recognised portrait in philately due to extensive portrayal in early British (and Empire) stamps. The penny black for example portrays the Queen's face for the first time in philatelic history. However, her majerty's face wasn't the only British sovereign portrayed on the early stamps. In 1869, Sarawak's first stamp was issued depicting the face of the white rajah - Sir James Brooke.

James Brooke was born in India to English parents. He gained control of Sarawak from the Sultan of Brunei by helping to quell an uprising against the sultan. He later became the Governor of the neighbouring British Colony of Labuan and introduced reforms, fought off pirate attacks and brought greater stability to the region.

James' Brooke personal correspondence, which he transported personally in his yacht to Singapore before posting in the normal way, graced and enriched Sarawak philately today. Before the first stamp was issued in 1869, Indian stamps were used for overseas postage. Unfortunately, James Brooke never lived to see his face on the stamps. He died nine months before they went on sale...

The low values of North Borneo's 1894 issue was selected among the list. It is a story between beauty and overexploitation in stamps marketing. North Borneo's 1894 issue broke the traditional designs of the 19th century stamps by introducing unrivalled eye-catching designs and noted to be among the most attractive and innovative design around that time. The depictions of Dyak chief, a Malay dhow, a sambar stag, a great argus pheasant, a sago palm tree, an estuarine crocodile and the majestic Mount Kinabalu created desirable philatelic results, delivering a romantic insight into island life.

However, the British North Borneo Company's overexplaitation by means of selling excess material to stamp trade, encouraging varieties, and special ties with a philatelic dealer in London, Mr Parker, tarnished the philatelic reputation of North Borneo.

Today, the stamps market of North Borneo is flooded with an endless myriad of cancelled-to-order remainders, printer's waste, improbable perforations, spurious overprints and of course blatant forgeries. While the market value of North Borneo and Labuan are rising steadily, the presence of the CTOs necessitate the third column in many worldwide stamps catalogue. The many pitfalls faced in collecting North Borneo stamps cause many aspiring collectors to avoid this country altogether...

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 :-