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.
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.