chephe...chephe...chephe...

Went for a jab-see-gai snipe for this nice stamp, chephe also came in with a snipe, luckily he won it with a reasonable margine for a re-sell profit. !@#$%^& chephe !!!

It had been raining almost everyday this week, hope it won't rain this Satuday night, our 'yam-cha' night & we'd already missed the last weekend, gantianexpress, phone me if I don't call up by 9.15 p.m. I sometimes get carried away if there's a good TV program on.

Snipers' party

sstawao was seating on this one from the beginning, beautiful postcard used with Sandakan sq.circle pmk. Last minute snipers came in like flies landing on shit. Sorry sstawao, no jab-see-gai, better luck next time.

I have not won any good North Borneo lot for a while now, my estimate is out of date and there are too many hawkeyes at ebay nowaday. Must be time for selling ?

Japanese Occupation 8cent.

Wow... nice one won by 'tapiapi', withstanding the strong challenge from 'elopura'. Looks like I should re-consider the offer by 'bury1883', at a lower price. Oooi.... bury1883... fatt loh, I know you have 20-30 pieces of these.

Congratulation, 'gantianexpress', you won a jab-see-gai covers lot with a very good North Borneo cover in it. You lucky !@#$%^&, may be you should show it to sstawao ?

Well done, bury1883 !!!

I don't mean you're over cooked, 'bury1883', but I thought 'g-matang' has this pmk on cover already ? May be other towns, I can't be sure now. It's a 'hard to get' pmk for sure. Celebrating your ebay success in Shanghai, perhaps ?

Saw my other friend, 'tapiapi', won the other one, KUDAT similar pmk. Congratulation, Jon !

Must sort out something for sale this weekend, to provide myself 'bullets' for 'jab-see-gai' at ebay. Not an easy task thesedays, North Borneo material is hot hot hot !

Who sent me this pic !!!???

Someone sent me this pic. I've never eaten a cat, but would love to eat this cheeky little bastard, and the sender afterwards. Having said that, it must be the best pic I received to date.

'gantianexpress', we'll see the realization of the North Borneo postage due in a few days, I know your fingers are itching.

'bury1883', there's a 7 day trip to Shanghai in May at reasonable price (cost less than your Silam cover) if you can't sit still in Tawau.

Have been a bit busy, hope to have more time by the end of next week. Happy hunting and lucky bidding to all my ebayers friends.

Murut and Dayak hunters

Won these two stamps yesterday, with 'Parcel Post ' and 'Mail Train' cancels.

Wondering what these hunters can hunt these days in Sabah's jungle, other than those wild boars living off oilpalm seeds in the plantations (provided that they're not shot entering the plantations). Will be interesting to find out from the remains of unrecorded animals they hunted long ago, now vanished.

Nice colour, gantianexpress.

Looks like you're addicted to colourful stuff, gantianexpress. I still think the green colour on this stamp looks more 'comfortable'. Nonetheless, you've added a very collectable item to your collection.

bury1883 doesn't seem to be bidding much recently, may be busy entertaining his son-in-law :) Hope he doesn't grow mushroom on this collection, but occasion sunbathing for his collection is not recommended, original colour preferred.

North Borneo stamps at ebay are getting expensive, I have not been able to 'jab-see-gai' recently. May have to re-adjust my valuation to have any success in the future.

Colourful cover of gantianexpress

I email gantianexpress after he won this cover : "Have I missed anything ?"
The reply was simple : "Colourful".
'Jar-dau', being a good friend, I had to offer the free service of colour-up all his covers by my little niece if he wants.

'I like it, so what ?' I like your attitude, gantianexpress, you're a true collector. Salute !!! You'll be even more respectable, if one day you show me your collection of ant's private part :)

Is TELEKOM MALAYSIA in deep shit ?

Did not post anything yesterday because of an annoying telephone call from KL Telekom Malaysia threaten to disconnect my phone line if I don't up in 7 days, I owe them RM93.53 !!!! I was busy looking up my old phone bill for my account number so that I can pay them online quickly. I don't want my line disconnected like it happened to gantianexpress. A client just phone up while I'm typing this, his home telephone line was disconnected because he has an outstanding of RM200+ and he had placed a deposit of RM1,200 with them !!!!

Is TELEKOM MALAYSIA in deep shit ? Being a public listed company, I think the public has the right to know their REAL financial status. I remember being over-charged RM500 -600 and only refunded after 6-7 months, it also happened to gantianexpress , something also happened to chephe's account around that period. Very fishy......

Is TELEKOM MALAYSIA now 'sink and swim' with our MAS ? God bless Malaysian under the 'rule' of those who 'love' Malaysia but cannot differentiate the '1957 Malaya Independence' and '1963 Malaysia Independence'. They should start collecting stamps and learn some history, Singaporean are laughing at us.

NORTH BORNEO 1902 Sandakan reg multifrk cvr/Hungary

Thought bury1883 is going to bid for this cover and crash with gantianexpress again. May be the price was too high that both snipes didn't come off :) It'll stay in Austria for now.

Missing 24c stamp ? Small matter, gantianexpress, right ?

Just finished lunch with a friend who told me his friend's father recovered from a car accident after taking a piece of 'bear gall-bladder'. His friend managed to find one in Tawau, about 1.5 inches in size, after turning Sabah upside down. Believe it or not, it is life saving stuff. I now think I have enough to save 2 elephants.

Did you find the grandson ???

gantianexpress won this nice incoming cover to Sandakan, it would be even more interesting if he can find the sender's grandson, his grandpa was exchanging stamps with someone from Sandakan ! :)

Last night's meeting with g-matang was fruitful, while gantianexpress also brought along some of his rare covers (if you show me yours, I'll show you mine :)), seeing their interesting and valuable airmail covers is an eye-opening event. Wish we have more of this 'yam-cha', better if those from Tawau can also join us, though I may not have anything sizeable to show them.

North Borneo 16c Train CDS

Failed to 'jab-see-gai' today, don't we all do that ? :) Always like to own some old NB stamps with nice CDS, well, you can't win them all.

CH is arriving from Singapore tonight (Saturday) , hope I can arrange for him to join our regular 'ebayer yam-cha' session. Not sure of his ebay id, g-matang, I believe. He hopes to see some airmail covers, North Borneo or Sarawak, which I don't have any presentable, hope gantianexpress or chephe can do better than me.

60 year old bear gall bladders

Before WWII my Dad bought these 2 bear gall bladders from a Murut hunter in Beaufort for $5. It can be seen from the scan that they were tied by rattan at one end. Both are dried and harden. Judging from the size of these, the Sun Bears must be of 'XXXL' size, if they were Sun Bear at all.

It's amazing that my Dad still had them after WWII, he must be treating these as life saving medicine ! Living condition during and after WWII was very hard in North Borneo. They're now in my collection, since I can't bring the two bears back to life, I may as well keep whatever left of them :)

By the way, the wooden ruler is also about 40 year old, in my collection.

Good North Borneo lot at eBay.

Some good North Borneo stamps in this recently close big lot. The price was beyond me.

chephe, your snipe wasn't high enough to show on the bidders list ? It will happen to my bid if I did try to get in :) I wonder if gantianexpress tried to bid ???? He was right, cheaper to pay one shipping cost for one big lot.

Big lot like this will be rare in the future, more likely to see single CDS used stamps being listed.

bury1883 held a party

bury1883 held a dinner party last Saturday, hope the Italian wine arrived in time. Sorry that I could not come to Tawau. May be he can supply me with a better photo of the party, this one can be misleading :)

bury1883, I'm still waiting for the scan of your old North Borneo bank note collection.

srilabuk expressed his interest in posting to this blog, he's invited and I'm looking forward to his postings.

North Borneo Revenue stamp

North Borneo Revenue stamps attract many bidding at eBay recently. This one won by missesval on 2nd March.

bury1883 told me there'll be 2 North Borneo 1939 stamps with revenue perforation in next SSS auction. Will be interested to know relisation for these 2 rare stamps.

gantianexpress said to me and chephe that we should all become SSS members if SSS accepts Paypal payment for its subscription :) It's exactly the reason why I haven't joined up yet, after having the convenience of Paypal for many years, any other mode of payment seem troublesome to me. Too few member from Kota Kinabalu may continue for a while yet.

Papar provisional pmk cover

sstawao has done well to get this nice cover to return to Sabah, at such high price, I must salute Fung for this.

May be it could also be returned to Sabah if tapiapi chooses to retire in KK ? Any chance, Jon ?

Sorry gantianexpress no 'jab-see-gai', better luck next time :)

Shanghai pmk on Labuan stamp

In respond to bury1883 telephone question, after the posting of the Gantian pmk, if that's the only 'goodies' I have for show. The answer is, I don't know but I know that's not the only one I 'like'.

This 'Shanghai' pmk may not be 'goodies' to many, but I like it even if it doesn't worth much money, I'm just a collector, what I like is more important than what it worth. In the eyes of a none collector, we are all fools, paying money for waste paper, but we like it !

Happy collecting to all, pay what you feel affordable. Money is only paper if not spent.

POSTMARK ERROR

Saw my friends diving into this 'inverted 23' postmark. Wondering why 'elopura' didn't join in the fun, may as well, the price is high enough. Glad to see it return to Sabah. Well done, 'gantianexpress' , better luck next time, 'bury1883' and 'tapiapi'.

Hope to get the scan from 'sstawao' to show evrybody the 'inverted month'.

My handphone was stolen on 28th Feb, no posting for the past 2 days, need to get a new sim card and a new phone. I assured 'chephe' that was not an excuse to change a new handphone like 'gantianexpress' did :)