Tag: Malaysia stamp

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Sarawak, 1955, Picking favorites among the tribes

Sarawak is a region of north Borneo that was awarded to a British adventurer by the Sultan of Brunei. That lead to the region passing to the British government and then on to modern Malaysia. One can imagine the fun of people far from home interacting with the local tribes, picking favorites, and trying to avoid nightmares. When you imagine such a thing the modern people of Sarawak would like to remind you of the moral distinction between headhunters and cannibals. The maneaters in Sarawak are the alligators. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

For this near the end of colonial times stamp issue, the colony decided to feature the culture of two of the smaller tribes in the area. In this case we have the ceremonial carving of the smaller Kenyah tribe that exist both in Sarawak as well as over the border in Indonesia.  It is understandable why the colony featured the Kenyah tribe. They are a peaceful, untatooed people who were early converts to Protestant Christianity and active in agriculture. Modern Malaysia has not stopped featuring the Kenyah people. Miss World Malaysia 2020, Francisca James, is from the Kenyah tribe in Sarawak.

Miss World Malaysia 2020 Francisca James, from the Kenyah tribe of Sarawak

Todays stamp is issue A24, a 10 cent stamp issued by the Crown Colony of Sarawak in 1955. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The area of Sarawak was awarded to British adventurer Sir James Brooke as a reward for assisting the then Sultan of Brunei. The rule of a different race was awkward but mostly peaceful and the economic future of the area was secured by the discovery of oil. The Brooke’s were dislodged by a Japanese occupation during World War II and the British government took over directly post war as better able to handle post war reconstruction.

The interaction of ruling or just resident whites made for some trouble in their depiction of some inland tribes as head hunters. It was true that some among the Iban tribe were headhunters. Naturally this is pretty exciting stuff back in the home country. In her last years back in Britain, Silvia, the last Brooke era Queen wrote a popular autobiography “Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters”. Like most primitive tribes, practices like head hunting became less common over time.

You might have expected such controversies to pass into history as the area became under Malaysian rule. Instead it has intensified as there is a new popular video game called Borneo, Jungle Nightmare. In it your character can fight pirates and Brooke style white rajahs. You also face jungle attacks by iban tribe head hunters that can go beyond head hunting into the consumption of human flesh. The towns are displayed as more modern. The critics would have preferred the game to be less place and people specific. The makers of the game state that it is just a game and is made more intriguing by including real places and realistic characters. They also point to documented cases of cannibalism in the area during post colonial insurrections.

Multiplayer online game ” Borneo, Jungle Nightmare”

Well my drink is empty. It will be up to the many gamers of the modern Sarawak to decide if they want to start the game and live out a local nightmare. I expect they will line up to do so. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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North Borneo 1909, The Sultan of Sulu sold, so the Baron von Overbeck is the new Maharajah

The story of these wild multinational adventurers had such an outsized effect on the far east, they are worth remembering. Though now part of Malaysia, North Borneo was liberated or enslaved from the Sulu Empire. Or was it swindled by the Sulu Empire from Spain and the Philippines? Everyone has a contract and an opinion. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage. and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamps of North Borneo came later than the money flashing of German/Austrian/American/Hong Kong Baron/ Maharajah Gustav Overbeck. The stamp still leans exotic and shows off the Malayan Tapir and is so old a stamp that then they were still then found in Borneo. No longer, Malayan Tapirs are now much fewer in number and just on the mainland of Malaysia and the island of Sumatra. The endangering happened despite not being hunted for food by the native Muslim Malayans as they believe that the tapir is closely related to the pig.

The tapir’s ever shrinking habitat

Todays stamp is issue A51,  a 1 cent stamp issued by the state of North Borneo in 1909. It was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used.

Gustav Overbeck was born in Germany to a non noble family. As a young adult he emigrated to the United States ending up in a trading business in San Francisco. He began lucrative trading trips to Hawaii the South Seas and even the Bering strait. His dealings in Hong Kong lead to a job with Dent and Co, a British/Chinese Hong trading firm. Now based in Hong Kong, he took up with a Chinese woman who bore him 4 daughters. First Austria, then Prussia hired him to be their Council in the area. He resigned his Prussian position during their war with Austria. Austria responded by first making him an aristocrat attaching von to his name and then making von Overbeck a full Baron. He still also maintained ties to America, marrying an American socialite who liked his title and bore him several children but mostly lived a separate life in Washington DC.

The Baron became interested in the area of North Borneo with an idea toward timber plantations. The area was very sparsely populated but he planned importing Chinese laborers and and more senior Japanese traders. He first bought out the existing concession of an American timber operation and then greatly expanded it by buying territory from the Sultans of Brunei and Sulu. Buying land from them comes with the local title of Maharajah. Or did it? Spain claimed that much of Borneo was actually part of their colony of the Philippines. Spain brought the Sulu Empire under its control and claimed also the land  sold to Overbeck, claiming his contract was only a lease to rent the land.

The Baron’s concessions from the Sultans of Brunei(left) and Sulu(right).
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered!

Overbeck traveled then back to Europe to try to have his concession be made a protectorate. He could not interest Germany, Austria, nor Italy in North Borneo. Baron von Overbeck was then contacted by his old British partners in Hong Kong the Dent Brothers who indicated they would be willing to buy out Overbeck and then petition to Queen Victoria for North Borneo to become a British Protectorate. This happened and Spain quickly withdrew it’s claim to North Borneo. The Baron lived out his days in London attended neither by his adulterous American wife, nor his ersatz Chinese wife. Well at least he had all these titles from places he no longer went.

The timber business was never that great in North Borneo has they were chronically short of labor. The Dent Trading house failed when it’s London based Bank failed with no deposit insurance. One of Dent’s competitors with the same problem survived because they were first to read of the bank failure in the Calcutta Times and get their money out of the local branch before by half an hour the branch had been informed that they failed.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Baron and Maharaja Gustav von Overbeck. He got around and made an impression at a time when most didn’t. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Straits Settlements 1912, Trying to keep Singapore British, when the people are Chinese, Malay, and Indian

Singapore is today a prosperous, multiracial trading city with very few British. This was true right from the beginning, when it was founded by the British. Showing how important a one percent can be. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

A British colonial stamp with the King, in this case George V, a denomination, and the particular colonies name. These stamps were standard designs printed by De La Rue in Great Britain with a place on the stamp set aside for the colonies name. They almost always had the British Monarch, showing that they were mainly for the use of the British one percent. Now an important reminder of how such a place started.

The stamp today is issue A24, a 5 cent stamp issued by the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements in 1912. It was a 19 stamp issue in various denominations with the high ones mainly to pay taxes and the lower values for postage. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10 used.

The settlement at Singapore, that was the crown jewel of the Straits Settlements, was founded by Stanford Raffles in 1819 at the tip of the Malay peninsula. Tribute was paid and protection promised to the local Malayans. He was in the employ of the British East India Company and the area was a division of the then Presidency of Bengal. The area was divided between the British in Malaysia and Northern Borneo and the Dutch to the south. At the time the British East India Company had a monopoly on the China trade and the Singapore trading station was central to that. From the earliest days, Chinese flooded in seeking a better life. They were over 90 percent male, China did not allow females to emigrate legally. The hope was to make it big and go back to China but most ended up staying and heavily involved with Tong Societies for female companionship and other illicit comforts. Indians also flooded in, but many were there as prisoners. It was a fairly volatile mix with only one percent of the colony British.

The colony grew rapidly but was garrisoned mostly by units of the British Indian Army. After an Indian mutiny in 1867 spread to Singapore, the area petitioned to the British parliament to become a formal British colony. The currency was changed from the official Rupee to a dollar tied to the value of the Spanish dollar that was already the currency of commerce. The British kept the ethnicities in separate neighborhoods and tried to ban the Chinese Tongs to get a handle on the worst of the Chinese coolie trade and the rampant sex trafficking. This was less than successful but the city was still growing fast.

It still had the problem of being manly garrisoned by Indians. A local volunteer force was tiny and only one third coming from the majority Chinese population. The Indians mutinied again in 1916 and were put down. When the Japanese invaded Malaya in 1941 the British commanded forces greatly outnumbered the Japanese. Most of the troops were Indians who for the most part did not fight. The same was true of the local volunteer forces. The few British and Australians were relying greatly on their Navy and Air Force but the Japanese Air Force sank several British ships and shot down most of their airplanes. Churchill ordered Singapore defended till the end but while the final perimeter in Singapore was holding there was not enough food and water to feed the vast mostly Chinese population that was present, mostly male but taking no part of the defense. The local British General surrendered citing their welfare and Churchill described the fall as Britain’s greatest military calamity. The horrid treatment of British prisoners meant many still paid with their lives for Singapore after surrender. Asian captives were given the opportunity to serve Japan.

After the war the Straits Settlements Colony was disbanded with Singapore becoming it’s own colony. With little loyalty to Britain or Malaya, self government was allowed. Independence saw the new Malaysia attempt to claim Singapore but it broke away a year later. Many of the structures of the British were retained and the place as never stopped growing. Today the still majority Chinese country has a GNP per capita 40% higher than Great Britain. It is over 6 times that of China, 5 times that of Malaysia, and 30 times that of India. This year is the bicentennial of the founding of Singapore by Stanford Raffles. We will see if his memory receives it’s due.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the one percent of Singapore that made possible the great success of the other 99 percent. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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North Borneo Company 1922, A British Chinese Hong company comes to Borneo to persevere and achieve

These empire builders are not looked back on well, but you have to admire their confidence in themselves. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp was not issued by a country or even a colony, but rather a private company that had acquired a territory to develop or exploit it depending on your point of view. Either way a prime function was to maximize revenue. Postage stamps were a part of that with many more printed for collectors than were needed for postage. The themes were usually topical with views of exotic animals and fauna as the printers imagined them to be in London. Companies like this are long gone but farmed out topicals remain, now printed in China where companies that exist to develop and exploit poor areas of the world are reemerging. History repeats.

Todays stamp is issue A54, a four cent stamp issued by the North Borneo Chartered Company in 1909. It was part of a 14 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used.

The area of North Borneo was previously under the control of the Sultan of Brunei. Alfred Dent, an Englishman, was involved in an important family business in the far east that operated as a trading firm called a Hong. It operated in Hong Kong and Shanghai and Mr. Dent was also involved in The Shanghai power company, tea plantations in Ceylon, and the conversion of the Indian Rupee from a silver standard to a gold standard. Sounds like he had a full plate but he desired to do more directly. At the time, the Sultan of Brunei was selling off large pieces of Borneo. Unfortunately he often sold the same piece of land several times over. Dent after several years of negotiations but was able to acquire North Borneo and have a publicly traded, British Royal Charted Company in charge. He bought it in exchange for 15,000 Spanish Gold Dollar coins. The coins were about .2 ounces of gold so worth $250 in todays money, a little less than 4 million dollars. Dent composed the motto for the colony as “I persevere, I achieve.”

Alfred Dent

The shareholder back in England where demanding short term dividends more than long term achievement and therefore Mr. Dent fell short of his goal. There was mining and some agriculture but the area proved expensive to operate. By the 1880s slavery was banned and so the company spent more effort stamping it out among locals that exploiting it for profit. The native tribesman also were difficult to coax to work for western enterprises and the few that did were punished by heavy taxation. The company had to import Sikh policeman from India to police tribal disputes. One Tribal leader named Antanum was on the outs with the company and lead a rebellion. He convinced enough natives of his magical powers and succeeded in overrunning several company outposts. The British Army had to be called in to arrest the tribesmen and Antanum was executed.

The area fell to the Japanese in World War II and the company had no resources to get the operation going again post war. In exchange for a token payment to cover old debts, the area was combined with the island of Labuan and became a British Colony. It passed on to Malaysia in 1963. The need of dividends for investors meant there was never enough reinvestment to persevere and achieve as much as Mr. Dent would have liked. Yet whether you speak of the jungle railroad in Borneo, the electricity in Shanghai, the tea in Sri lanka, or the value of the Rupee in India, a lot of things are around today because of Mr. Dent’s perseverance. It will surprise no one that it is Antanum that has the statue in todays Malaysia.

Antanum statue in Tenom, Malaysia

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Sultan of Brunei. By trading off land he was able to continue until oil was discovered by others and he became one of the richest people in the world. I prefer “I persevere and I achieve” to I hang around and then take advantage, but results do speak loudly. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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Malaysia 1974, Remembering the tin industry during it’s Malaysian sunset

We have often covered here how colonial periods often bring in new ethnicities into a place. In Malaysia’s case, Chinese came in to then Malaya to mine for tin. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp shows a gravel pump tin mine in Malaysia. Water is sprayed forcing up the gravel and allowing the tin to be filtered out. It is a fairly old tech, low cost way of mining for tin. Showing an older way harkens back to when the industry was started in the 19th century by Chinese emigres. This activity is what made many of them rich and indeed the capital Kuala Lumpur started as an important tin mining town.

Todays stamp is issue A50, a 15 cent issue of Malaysia on October 31st, 1974. It was part of a three stamp issue in various denominations that displayed the local tin industry in honor of that years International Tin Conference in Kuala Lumpur. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.

Tin mining was started by Chinese emigres in then Malaya in the early nineteenth century. At the time, tin mining was extremely labor intensive as it mainly consisted of manually digging and separating out the tin. The importation of the Chinese laborers was handled by the Chinese themselves. While some deals were struck with local Malayans and their Sultans, there were also some turf wars as the Malayans sought their share of the bounty. There was also trouble between various Chinese Tongs over who would control the opium trade and brothels that grew up around the mines.

The British used this instability as an excuse to formalize their control over Malaya. This allowed the Chinese to become more entrenched in Malaya and enjoy their new found wealth in more stable and fast growing Kuala Lumpur. The British saw the opportunity to install more modern dredge style tin mining, that had higher yields and was less labor intensive. The Chinese did not have the capital to install their own dredges and so fell behind.

Over time tin mining has become less important. The easily recovered tin is mostly exhausted leaving reserves that are more complicated to exploit. Tin prices on the world market are quite cyclical, favoring low cost producers. There is also the issue that it would be no longer possible to import large numbers of Chinese to work new mines. It has reached the point that Malaysia is a net importer of tin.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Chinese in Malaysia. It must have been quite a challenge to go to a new land and build a new life with the Malayans and the British always trying to take their share of any accomplishment. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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Kelantan 1911, the British peal away Siam, for the benefit of Malaya

The British and their trading posts. Still today we work with the deals struck. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The script on todays stamp may be a little bit of a non sequitur. It is Arabic script but the Jawi language. The Jawi language is more common in Kelantan than elsewhere in Malaysia. The emblem on the stamp is no longer used but the area is still ruled by the same line of Sultans as when this stamp was new.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a 1 Sen stamp issued by the Sultanate of Kelantan in 1911. It shows the then symbol of the new status of the old government. The stamp was issued over many years in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 in its used state.

Kelantan is on the coast of northeast Malaysia. It is ruled by the Pantani line of Sultans for the last 500 years. Over that time they have had to pledge loyalty to Malaya, Siam, Great Britain, Japan, Thailand, Great Britain again, Malaya again, and now Malaysia. This show a certain flexibility. It is a rural, agricultural area that is among the poorer in the region, although Malaysia today passes through a good deal of petroleum  revenue.

With the same government so long, it is understandable that the region is conservative and traditional. It is a bastion of the most traditional Muslim political party. It is one of the most strict areas for movies et al. This might explain some of the attitude of Thailand toward it.

The late and the first half of the 20th century  Siam gradually shrunk as Britain and France encroached. A treaty was signed between Siam and Britain  in 1910 that gave Kelantan and a few other provinces to Malaya. The British sent in an advisor to the Sultan and did not formally federate the area in the then colony of Malaya.

Kelantan Sultan Mohammad V

The King of Siam Rama V said at the time that he had no interest in these dominions. This may be bluster but the deal helped Siam in several ways. The debts due Siam from Sultanates like Kelantan were now to be paid by Britain. It also included a British guarantee of Siam independence. Siam has also faced a Muslim insurgency virtually continuously and an area with such traditional Muslims would have only strengthened it if it were part of Buddhist modern Thailand.

King Rama V. Now he is more celebrated for ending slavery in Siam

It was Kelantan where the Japanese landed in their Malayan invasion in 1941. They quickly transferred Kelantan to Thailand, an ally. It reverted back to Great Britain post war and was gradually integrated more fully into Malaya in preparation for independence as Malaysia.

As of now, the modern Malaysian state has not moved to remove the regional Sultans. In fact they serve on a commission from which is elected the ceremonial head of state of Malaysia, the Yang di Pertuan Agong. The current head of state Muhammad V is from Kelantan. While serving in this capacity, his younger brother serves Kelantan in a Regency.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Pantani line of Sultans and their longevity. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Malaysia 1969, The Tunku promotes a policy of racial unselfishness

The demographics of Malaya had changed a great deal under the British colonial period. No not British people, but people from India, Ceylon, and especially China had poured in and now were the majority of the economy if not the population. This makes proceeding toward independence difficult. Unless the Chinese could find a Malayan figurehead, a guy with local titles but had gone British. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp was issued in honour of solidarity week. This was to promote unity among Malaysia’s ethnic communities. The portrait of Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman shows that it was really about politics with the Tunku’s party up for reelection and new Chinese parties threatening the old alliance.

Todays stamp is issue A22, a 15 cent stamp issued by the Federation of Malaysia on Febuary 8th, 1969. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Abdul Rahman Putra al Haj was born in Kedah the seventh son among 45 children of the Sultan of Kedah. He married a Thai girl of Chinese ancestry and then was sent to Cambridge University. His studies went badly and even after hiring and moving in with him an English tutor he was unable to pass the bar exam. He did strike up a friendship with Violet Coulson an English girl who ran a coffee shop where many of the Malayan students took their meals. When his first wife died after the birth of his second child, Abdul wrote to Violet and she hired a manager for the coffee shop and left immediately for Singapore. Abdul was working as a civil servant and by now had the title of Tunku. She officially converted to Muslim and they married in a Mosque but it was many years before the Sultanate or the British administration recognized the interracial marriage.  Finding so little acceptance and finding Malayan women uncivilized, Violet spent most of her time with British official’s wives. This enhanced the Tunku’s career but angered him personally. Violet eventually went back to London without him.

What didn’t help Tunku’s career was the Japanese invasion. He stayed at his job under the Japanese but that came to an end at the end of the war. He went back to London to try one last time to pass the bar and to give Violet her divorce. Upon returning to Malaya, Tunku went into politics. He understood the British policy was to leave Malaya as soon as possible and they were going to turn it over to the political group that looked most likely to hold the country together with it’s different ethnic groups. Tunku realized that would have to be an alliance party supported by Chinese money but with a Malayan face, his face. He marketed this as a policy of racial unselfishness. He was appointed Prime Minister by the British in 1955 and stayed on after independence in 1957. A rival Chinese party under Harry Lee in Singapore threatened to lure Chinese away from Tunku’s Alliance Party and so Singapore was allowed to break away from Malaya. The country was renamed Malaysia to take into account the Asian ethnic groups that made up the new country. The Chinese minority gradually became dissatisfied with Tunku’s mismanagement and formed separate Chinese only political parties. Their success in the 1969 election made Tunku’s position unmanageable. The Alliance party decided if Tunku could no longer bring along the Chinese, what good was he. A more ethnically Malay Alliance Party forced Tunku to resign and promoted a more Malay First economic agenda. Malaysia greatly fell behind the economic progress of Chinese run but with a British based system Singapore.

Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently await tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Sarawak, When the Last white Rajah won’t write the check, Britain bails out again

Profit seeking companies have a pretty poor track record running colonies. See here https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/07/imperial-british-east-africa-company-1890-another-company-fails-to-administer-a-colony/   or here https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/28/mozambique-company-1937-taking-credit-where-none-was-due/    . This one is a little different as the descendants of a white adventurer were ruling Malayans after being given the land by the Sultan of Brunei. Until it was time to write a big check and the White Rajah instead puts in a call to the colonial office. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is from after the bailout but before the area passed to independent Malaysia. These type stamps often show the local industry and this issue does show local basket weavers. No oil industry stamp though, instead exotic animals and plants. Britain had been accused of colonizing Sarawak post war to get their hands on the oil resources. So no stamp of the industry to make the locals point.

Todays stamp is issue A23, a two cent stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Sarawak in 1955. It was part of a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents.

Charles Viner Brooke was the last in the line of 3 Brookes that had been  white rulers of Sarawak. During their time the area was not a British colony. The people of Sarawak were Malayan. Brooke had taken over in 1917. Over time the area became more prosperous as oil was discovered. Brooke had followed the common British practice in colonial areas in turning over much of the interactions with locals to a council of tribesman. Brooke agreed to their request of banning Christian missionaries and in turn the tribesman had banned the local practice of cannibalism. In 1941, a new constitution was passed for Sarawak that would gradually shift more power to locals while leaving the Brookes in ceremonially as the Rajah. In return for signing off on this, the Sarawak treasury paid Brooke $200,000 that funded his exile in Sydney. The Japanese then invaded and the new constitution was not implemented. The Japanese held on to Sarawak till the end of the war and left most of the oil fields in wreckage.

Brooke returned to Sarawak in 1945 and was received in a friendly manner. He then informed the locals that he did not have the money needed to get the oil fields back into production and he contacted the British regarding a loan to Sarawak. The only way a British loan was possible was if Britain was named the colonial administrator. As part of the deal, Brooke would personally receive 1 million pounds, over 30 million dollars today. Many local tribesmen viewed this as a sellout as it would mean again that their constitution would not be implemented. They pointed out that Britain had done nothing to defend Sarawak from the Japanese. Neither or course had the tribesmen and how else could Britain guarantee repayment of the loan. It is worth pointing out that it was the British that had discovered the oil in Sarawak and neighboring Brunei and done the work of bringing it to market. It would not be them however to get rich from it. Britain readily passed Sarawak and it’s oil on to independent Malaysia.

The Brooke family was also not happy with the decision to turn the area over to the British ending the white Rajah. Anthony Brooke, the nephew and heir, actively opposed the turnover and was banned by the British from the now colony. Even Charles’s wife Sylvia opposed the turnover. She had ambitions that her daughter Lenora would be able to put Islamic law and rules of succession aside and become the next white Rajah. After Charles died, Sylvia wrote a book about her time as Queen Consort title “Sylvia of Sarawak, Queen of the Headhunters”.

Sylvia Brooke, last Queen consort of Sarawak, and self proclaimed queen of the head-hunters

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Sylvia. She looks to be an expensive woman to keep happy, it is no wonder Charles felt the need to sell out Sarawak. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Malaya 1960, Sultan Ismail of Johore forgets about the rice farmer

The British left the Sultans in place to ease relations with locals as they put together one of there most successful multi racial colonies. This would have worked well if the Sultans remembered the interest of their subjects. Johore was not so lucky when it came to that. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is definitely modeled on British Empire stamp issues with Sultan Ismail looking on where Queen Elizabeth would be. The difference is most British believe Queen Elizabeth was working for them. Is this Chinese rice farmer expected to believe that Sultan Ismail is looking out for him. You really can’t expect him to be that stupid. The picture is even just repurposed from a Kedah issue from 1957 with Sultans changed out.

Todays stamp is issue A8, a four cent issue from the Sultanate of Johore in 1960 while the area was subordinate to the British colony of the Federated Malayan states. It was part of an eleven stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

1960 was an exciting time in Johore with a new Sultan Ismail. Except that he was really nothing new. Ismail’s father Ibrahim had been Sultan since 1895 but lived as a European playboy. Starting in the late 1930s, Ismail had acted as Regent on his father’s behalf in Johore while Ibrahim married a string of European women, got caught cheating when he painted one of his thoroughbred horses to get better gambling odds, spend too much time in the red light districts of Vienna and chasing cabaret dancers. He did return once to Johore just in time to collaborate with the Japanese occupation. Seems the British couldn’t rely on him any more than the Malayans. Surely after his fathers death, Ismail could be his own man and an improvement?

1960 was a complicated time in Malaya. Independence was coming despite the Sultan of Johore writing an op-ed hoping for Strait Settlements forever. The independence groups were divided. Some wanted union with Indonesia and some were more militant Muslims who desired closer connections with the Middle East. Meanwhile thanks to the British, there were large numbers of Indians and especially Chinese. Just after the war, the British forced the Sultans to accept a new constitution that gave the Chinese and Indians citizenship. With the divisions among Malayans, they proved able to buy off the Sultans the way the British had. The Sultans thus still represent their areas and cost a lot, but are really at the fringe of political power.

Ismail proved to be ineffectual as his power decreased with independence. That in itself was an improvement. He was immediately faced with trouble from his first born son Iskandar. Ismail removed him as heir after having two policemen chained up in dog kennels for days after annoying him. Even after being removed there were several road rage incidents involving assaults by Iskandar. He then shot and killed a man for standing too close to his helicopter. Ismail was around to hush things up and issue pardons.

By 1981 Sultan Ismail was elderly and fell into a coma before death. When he went into a coma is up for debate as suddenly Iskandar appeared with documents restoring him as heir presumptive. Ismail never came out of the fatal coma to validate Iskandar’s documents but he still became Sultan. In 1987, a caddy laughed when Sultan Iskandar missed a putt. The Sultan then beat him to death right there on the golf course. As Sultan, he had immunity from criminal prosecution. The Malaysian government used the incident and others  to strip the Sultans of their criminal immunity.

Rice production it will surprise nobody was not one of Malaya nor Malaysia’s strengths. It is the third largest crop but is not run efficiently with up to date techniques. This might have been guessed from the stamp. Malaya had to import about one third of it’s rice consumption, That was true in 1960 and still true today.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the simple rice farmer. To the extent that Malaysia has gotten ahead it is built upon the labor of people like him. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.