North Borneo Stamp – The-Philatelist

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.