North Borneo STAMPS FOR SALE
SABAH 1984-1986 COMPREHENSIVE VERY FINE USED COLLECTION. A virtually complete run from 1964 set through to 1986 set (SG 408/65) with just two spaces left to fill. Lovely quality! (55 stamps)
NORTH BORNEO 1947 ‘Monogram’ overprint set, SG 335/49, v fine cds used (15).
NORTH BORNEO 1896 high values “SPECIMEN” opts set,SG 80s/82s,mint,25c no gum,3
NORTH BORNEO 1895 surcharges set with “SPECIMEN” opts, SG 87s/91s,fine mint(5)
NORTH BORNEO 1947 UPA PRESENTATION FOLDER with 1947 complete set, SG 335/349, mint. (15 stamps in single folder)
NORTH BORNEO 1925-28 $2 mauve Arms, SG 292, fine mint.
NORTH BORNEO 1889 $5 bright purple, SG 49, v fine fiscal used.
NORTH BORNEO 1939 25c green & chocolate Native Boat Pictorial VIGNETTE PRINTED DOUBLE ONE ALBINO variety, SG 313a, very fine mint, fresh.
NORTH BORNEO 1894 $10 brown with “SPECIMEN” opt, SG 86s, fine mint
SABAH 1964 Pictorial defin set, SG 408/23, fine cds used (16 stamps)
We sell North Borneo stamps, collections, complete sets, errors and varieties
North Borneo Stamps – The history of Western involvement in North Borneo reads like an exciting novel with the British finally taking a serious interest in the area when it was feared that a vast area of land ceded to an Austrian businessman might pass into the hands of Austria or Germany itself. Alfred Dent of the great eastern trading house Dent Brothers managed to dislodge the Austrian through legal manoeuvrings and obtained a Royal Charter to a new British North Borneo Company.
North Borneo’s first postage stamp was probably issued during March or April 1883, having been despatched from England in late January or possibly even later. The design incorporates the Arms of the Company with script in English, Malay & Chinese, the stamps being printed by Blades, East and Blades of London, who printed for the colony until 1894. One of the rarest stamps of North Borneo is actually a pair of these stamps imperforate between.
Once Waterlow took over as printers in 1894 the designs changed dramatically from the ‘Company Arms’ styling to spectacular and intricate bi-colour pictorials depicting local chiefs, stags, birds, crocodiles, mountains, elephants, rhinoceros plus so much more. No tasteless modern pictures these, but the finest work of London’s best engravers and stamp collectors have marvelled over them ever since.
As well as the considerable pictorials-only legacy which continued until the end of North Borneo itself in 1963, philatelists can enjoy the many different perforation varieties to be found amongst many of these issues, unusually collectors will note a third column in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue which indicates the price for stamps with a remainder cancellation. The ‘postmarking’ of excess stamps in this way gave generations of philatelists the opportunity to acquire otherwise valuable stamps at substantially reduced prices.
For information on postmarks and postal history, we would recommend “The Postal History of British North Borneo” and for the stamps, proofs, essays and so much more “The Stamps and Postal History of North Borneo. Parts I to III” by L. H. Shipman.
