To be or not to be : CTO - The dangerous ones 05 a

In this last part of CTO cancels, I will show you 'the dangerous' ones.
Not that they will bite you, but they are dangerous because they don't look 'CTO'.
A catalogue helps to distinguish them, and of course this blog too.

For people who are not familiar with the history of British Malaya, and British North Borneo, I found a great diagram of how those states and islands became united, changed their names, and ended up as Malaysia and Singapore in the end.
I will come back to this diagram and the different states later, but for this post, I only need to refer to "Labuan" and "North Borneo" as you can see in the right hand side of the diagram. Both states are now part of Malaysia.

History of Malaysian stamps history

Labuan was once part of Brunei, but in 1846 it became part of the British Empire, and two years later, it was a crown colony. In 1890 it was annexed to North Borneo - having 'Labuan' printed on the stamps of North Borneo. Between 1906 and 1946 it was part of the Straits Settlements. After being shortly connected to the crown colony of Singapore, it was reunited with North Borneo and bared the name of the crown colony of British North Borneo. This colony was granted self-governance in 1963 and in the same year it became mart of Malaysia.

So far history.
Now to the stamps, and why they are tagged under "the dangerous CTO's".

In 1886 a huge amount of stamps of North Borneo were cancelled.
All new stamps bared the name of "North Borneo" and the new name of the state was now "British North Borneo". All the stamps that were still available got cancelled - officially - with an oval cancel with 9 bars.

9 bars cancel

According to Michel - catalogues, there are also 14-bars cancels. I found those so far only on North Borneo stamps. Michel claims that those 14-bars stamp are forgeries, or that there are forgeries among those 14-bars cancels. However it's unclear to me if all (or only some) 14-bars cancels are forgeries or not.

14 bars cancel

Both cancels are easy to distinguish.

North Borneo - Michel 55 - 57 - 14 bars cancel

Labuan - Michel 62 and 63

Labuan - Michel 70b to 75

Labuan 76 and 77

to be continued ...

Banknotes : North Korea - 02

In 1978 someone in North-Korea had the luminous idea of making banknotes for North-Koreans, for tourists from other socialist republics and for non-socialist visitors.
Maybe it was a way to prevent 'real' money leaving the country, or the only way to buy North-Korean money abroad. I don't think the people of Pyong-Jang really cared if the notes were spent by 'believers' or 'non-believers', but by looking at the banknotes, a lot of privacy of the bearer was given.

In this 1978 set, we see red serial numbers, North-Korean inhabitants used notes with red and black serial numbers, other socialist tourists had banknotes with only black serian numbers. As this shown set has only red serian numbers, so for 'kapitalist' tourists only.

Front North-Korea n°18, 19 and 20

However, at the back, some details are important too...
The notes for 'locals' with red and black serial numbers were replaced by notes with red serial numbers only, but can be distinguised by the 'non-socialist' notes by a number in a red guilloche on the back.
The tourist notes have a seal on the back, but no number.
So let's have a look at the same 3 notes that at first appeared to be 'non-socialist, tourist notes' :

Back North-Korea n°18c, n°19d and n°20c

red seal on n°18c

red seal on n°20c

red guilloche on n°19d

So this means, that the 1 and 10 won note were issued for western tourists, but the 5 won note was issued for local (North-Koreans), but is a replacement note.

heroic family North-Korea n°18

labour and growing food North-Korea n°19

winged equestrian statue "Chonlllima"

In this set, also a 50 won and a 100 won note were issued.
On the 50 won, the same serial numbers/seals and guilloches as in the notes above.
The 100 won note only came in the first emission (red and black serial number - local use)

Banknotes : North Korea - 01

For those who haven't been to North-Korea yet...
(Or those who went there, but haven't returned yet...) a small contribution now their illustrious leader, Kim Jong-Il, has deceased lately.

North Korea was split from it's sister republic South-Korea in 1945, when the Potsdam Conference took the 38th parallel as the line deviding the occupation forces of the United States and Russia.
It's not easy to get in to the country, and it's even more difficult to get out of that area.
Having banknotes from North-Korea might be illegal, I don't know for sure, but for those who are worried, I 'm taking care of them, by all means.

Banknotes of North-Korea came into circulation in 1945. At first, they were issued under Russian supervision.
In 1947 the Central Bank of North Korea emitted their first own notes.

It's a set of 8 notes: 15, 20 and 50 chon - 1, 5, 10 and 100 won. (the 5 won came in 2 versions).

Having "15" on a banknote is rather unusual.

North Korea n° 5 and n° 7 front

North Korea n°5 and n°7 back

The whole set came in 2 versions, with and without watermark.
The notes with watermark have a catalogue price double as the unwatermarked copies.

More recent notes are following...

Belgian banknotes King Albert I (part 6)

The last banknote that I will present in this set of King Albert I- notes, is the 5 Francs (or 1 Belga).
There are 3 types of this banknote, and they were issued as follows :

Type 1 : Issued from 1.4.1922 till 25.6.1926 (Krause n° 93)
Type 2 : Issued from 14.6.1926 till 10.5.1931 (Krause n° 97)
Type 3 : Issued from 1.3.1938 till 11.5.1938 (Krause n° 108)

Each of these types appear with 2 different signature varieties.

Type 1 has no text in the white circle where the watermark can be found.
Type 2 has both words "Trésorerie / Thesaurie" on the front of the banknote
Type 3 has the French 3 "Trésorerie" on the front and the Dutch "Thesaurie" on the back

So far, I  don't have a copy of  Type 1.

Krause - Belgium n° 97 (Type 2)

Detail type 2 - Krause n° 97

Detail type 3 - Krause n° 108

3 different printing dates : first last series of Type 2 - 2 prints of Type 3

On the back side of the banknote, we see a miner sitting and looking over a mining area.
Just behind him, the towers of the mines can be found.

Back of Type 3 - Krause n° 108

detail Krause n° 108 - miner and tower

Prices varie from 1 € in used condition, to 25 € in perfect condition.

Theme : Esperanto 10b - Belgian postcards

In my previous post on the Esperanto postcards, I spoke of a set of 20 different cards.
This is what I presume, as i have card n°20. But after a bit of search, I found that there must be at least 24 cards. Unfortunatly I don't have all the cards in this set.

In the first post, I showed some of the animation around the 7th International congress of Esperanto, that was held in the Belgian city 'Antwerp' (or : Antverpeno, in Esperanto).

Apparently there was a kind of cinderella stamp in use to promote the 7th International Congress.
I don't have that stamp in my collection, but I found it in the internet and I'm sharing it with you.

cinderella to promote the Esperanto congress - not in my posession

Well, back to the postcards...
There are many missing in my collection, but I'm sharing those I have.

Group photo after the Red Cross Performance - Card 4

card 13 - during the congress

View of the Gerneral  Assembly in the big hall of the Royal Zoological Garden in Antwerp

Card 20 - gathering after the convention with the international guests

Anyone who can provide me the other cards in this set, please contact me.

Theme : Esperanto 10a - Belgian postcards

As I'm posting already so many stamps, ... some postcards for a change.
But of course, I will stick to my topic: Esperanto.

The cards I'm posting now are not just cards with 'Esperanto' on it, or a green star (verda stelo) somewhere in the corner. No it's a set of postcards issued for a special occasion.
In 1911 the seventh international Esperanto congress was held in Antwerp (Belgium).

On that occasion, a set of (at least) 20 postcards with Esperanto text were issued.

As the cards I have are without any stamp, it's not clear if they are really from 1911 or reprints of a later date.
The cards show scenes of the events in and around the congress area, where at the time, a lot of events took place in the city of Antwerp.
For example, the international Red Cross was present and showed the people their skills.
It's a bit funny to see them dressed in the old days' costumes, as they don't accelerate the speed of intervention.

I don't have the complete set, and I presume there are 20 different cards, so if anyone can help me finding the missing ones.... please let me know

Card 1 - Nurses of the Red Cross, in uniform

Cards 2 and 3 - role play, red cross in action

Card 16 - after the intervention of the Red Cross

Card 16 detail : "you certainly will get better, friend"

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Odd stamps : 04c 3D stamps (static)

I wonder if the Umm-al-Qiwaini ever saw these stamps in the postoffice.
They are all officially emitted, but as you might have noticed, they are all for airmail.

I can't tell you if these stamps have actually been used for sending letter. The structure of the stamp (plastic) isn't really ment for cancelling, and besides of that, the stamps are quite big too. Machines that process letters nowadays, might rip off the stamps when such letters are passing through.
The sets I have (and I don't have them all !) are available for fair prices, in MNH-condition, but I doubt if they can be found postally used. If so, they are rare.

In my previous post, I have shown some of the 1971 and 1972 issues.
1972 was indeed a year with almost alone 3D stamps. And since I have recently purchased some of those sets, I'm sharing some more with you today.

Umm-al-Qiwain - dogs (1972)

Umm-al-Qiwain - flowers (1972)

Umm-al-Qiwain - butterflies (1972)

Odd stamps : 04b 3D stamps (static)

It's been a while since I posted 'odd' stamps.
Since the year is ending, it's a nice time to share some 'oddies' as my early new year's gift.

I can imagine that 'Umm-al-Qiwain' isn't the most wanted country for stamp collector.
Being part of the United Arab Emirates, they don't issue their own stamps anymore. But until 1972, the stamps of this Emirate were indeed in use. From 1973 on all of the sultanats and emirates were joined into the United Arab Emirates and since then they issued their stamps under that name.
All 'Umm-al-Qiwain' stamps that were issued after 1973, are private issues.

But why 'Umm-al-Qiwain'? Except form dessert, oil, and expensive hotels, I can't imagine this state as being very touristic. Pardon me if it's really worth visiting; one can always learn something new.
From the philatelistic point of view, this Arab country isn't really a hot topic.

Umm al Qiwain - racecars 1971

In the early 70's; several countries emitted static 3D stamps. In fact it's a thick plastic stamp that gives the impression of a tridimentional image. Nature and cars are favourite topics to depict.

Umm al Qiwain - birds 1972

Umm al Qiwain - wildlife 1972 (1)

Umm al Qiwain - wildlife 1972 (2)

Belgian banknotes King Albert I (part 5)

Some time ago I posted an overview of belgian banknotes issued under King Albert I.
More recently, I have talked about the single issues in individual posts.

Today I bring you the smallest note of the series : the 1 franc / 1 frank

Belgium - Krause n° 92

This banknote was issued in the 1920's and is in the same style as the other notes (5, 20, 100 and 1000 francs).
On the top, right from the middle, we find the printing dates.
These varie on many notes.
For collectors who search for printing dates, a great asset of course.

I don't have that many 1 franc notes, but still, I can show some of the printing dates :

twice 1920 - one time 1922

At the back of the note, there isn't much special. Of course, the 1 franc note is the lowest value of this set, so there isn't much special to put on it, as the note is quite small.(+/- 40 cm²).

Since the note is quite small, there's not place for a decent watermark. But the entire banknote is printed on paper with a certain watermark.
I tried to scan it with a backlight, but that's not easy with a normal scanner.
However I more or less succeeded in making a scan that allows you to recognise this watermark.

To make it more visible, I added some lines, so you can follow the pattern of wavy, flowerish lines.

Wavy lines as watermark on the entire banknote Krause Belgium n°92

Collecting is such an interessting hobby, isn't it :-)