Brunei Japanese Occupation Rare 8 Cents Stamp

This is my latest acquisition - a very rare 8 cent stamps overprinted by the Japanese Imperial Government for use in Brunei during the Second World War. The 8 cents stamp even without overprints are rare as not many were produced. This one cost me US$230 which makes it the most expensive among my 15 Brunei overprint Japan stamps. I thought I had completed my series but there are sill 5 stamps which I still need to collect.

The catalogue value for this stamp is US$760, so the US$230 I paid for is worth it. The other expensive values will be the $5, $25 and $3 overprints. I am trying to get the 16th stamp which is the 30 cents overprint. Luckily that only has a CV value of US$105 but I probably have to pay much higher than that.

The Olympics

It's the 2008 Olympics in Beijing today. Today's illustration is the Olympics stamps issued by Australia given by a fellow collector friend, Kai from Australia. When did the Olympics start?

According to legend, the ancient Olympic Games were founded by Heracles (the Roman Hercules), a son of Zeus. Yet the first Olympic Games for which we still have written records were held in 776 BCE. At this Olympic Games, a naked runner, won the sole event at the Olympics, the stade - a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards) making him the very first Olympic champion in history.

The ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games because of their pagan influences.

It took almost 1,500 before a Frenchmen named Pierre de Coubertin began its revival. He believed that the French lost to the Germans not because of military tactics but because they were weak. So Coubertin decided that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vigorous person. It took him a while to get France interested. In 1890, he organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA).

After one failure, four years later, Coubertin organized another meeting. This time with 79 delegates who represented nine countries. He gathered these delegates in an auditorium that was decorated by neoclassical murals and similar additional points of ambiance. At this meeting, Coubertin eloquently spoke of the revival of the Olympic Games. The delegates at the conference voted unanimously for the Olympic Games. The delegates also decided to have Coubertin construct an international committee to organize the Games. This committee became the International Olympic Committee and Demetrious Vikelas from Greece was selected to be its first president. Athens was chosen for the revival of the Olympic Games and the planning was begun.

The very first modern Olympic Games opened in the first week of April 1896. Since the Greek government had been unable to fund construction of a stadium, a wealthy Greek architect, Georgios Averoff, donated one million drachmas (over $100,000) to restore the Panathenaic Stadium, originally built in 330 BCE, with white marble for the Olympic Games.

Since the Games were not well publicized internationally, contestants were not nationally chosen but rather came individually and at their own expense. Some contestants were tourists who happened to be in the area during the Games. Athletes wore their athletic club uniform rather than a national team one.

Since then, the Olympic Games have been held at:
1896 - Athens
1900 - Paris
1904 - St. Louis
1906 - Athens ("Unoffficial")
1908 - London
1912 - Stockholm
1916 - Not held
1920 - Antwerp
1924 - Paris
1928 - Amsterdam
1932 - Los Angeles
1936 - Berlin
1940 - Not held
1944 - Not held
1948 - London
1952 - Helsinki
1956 - Melbourne
1960 - Rome
1964 - Tokyo
1968 - Mexico City
1972 - Munich
1976 - Montreal
1980 - Moscow
1984 - Los Angeles
1988 - Seoul
1992 - Barcelona
1996 - Atlanta
2000 - Sydney
2004 - Athens

Brunei's Latest Stamps

Last Friday was 1st August 2008. It was 40 years ago when His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah was coronated as the 29th Sultan of Brunei, a long line of Sultanate which started in the 14th Century.

However according to Chinese records, friendly exchanges between Brunei and China have a long history. The earliest records date back more than 2,000 years ago as early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 23 AD) when commodity trade relations existed and official exchanges between the governments during the Tang Dynasty (618 AD to 907 AD). By the time of the Song Dynasty (960 AD to 1270 AD), there were official and non-governmental commercial and cultural exchanges have been officially recorded in the history of China. I got the information from a book called 'The Collection of Historical Documents Related to Bilateral Relations Between China and Brunei Darussalam' edited by Liu Xinsheng, published by World Affairs Press China in 2006.

So if we were to take the lineage of the rulers of Brunei beyond the 13th century, then our rulers have been in existent and we as a country has certainly been in existence for a really really long time.

Anyway, I digress. To mark His Majesty's 40th Coronation Anniversary, the Postal Services Department issued a special set of commemorative stamps. These stamps depict events from the coronation in itself. This is the 4th set of Coronation Anniversary Stamps. The previous ones were to celebrate the 10th Anniversary in 1978, the 20th Anniversary in 1988 and the 30th Anniversary in 1998.

This year's stamps are also available on first day covers as well as on miniature sheets. When I went to the Philatelic Counter yesterday to get my order, I was told that there are two types of miniature sheets. One is the one that you can see here and the other is a $40 miniature sheet which the Postal Services had to return back because due to colour differences. That one will be released as soon as the printers come back with the corrected colours.

Terengganu Borneo-Malaya Exhibition 1922

I managed to acquire another set of the states that showcased their stamps during the Straits Settlement Malaya-Borneo Exhibition of 1922. This time that of Terengganu though the set is complete compared to the other states' collections that I had shown before this.

Kedah Malaya-Borneo Exhibition 1922

In 1922, Brunei joined the Straits Settlements states exhibiting its products in the Borneo-Malaya Expo which was held in Singapore. It is not known whether Brunei actually exhibit its products and who actually went to the expo. But what is known is that during the expo, all the Malaya states plus Singapore, North Borneo (present day Sabah), Sarawak and Brunei all produced overprinted stamps - stamps with the words Malaya Borneo Exhibition. In Brunei's case, it was Malaya Borneo Exhibition 1922. Most of the other states just overprinted with the words 'Malaya Borneo Exhibition'.

These stamps were not in the earlier form accepted as new stamps as they are old stamps with the overprints. But over time, these have been accepted as a special print and are now recognised. I have been trying to collect the other staes ever since I completed the Brunei set a few months earlier. The other day I was able to buy additional stamps for the Kedah set. I am only short of the $1 stamp for the Kedah state. If you happen to have that particular stamp, please let me know.

Iran 2000 Riyals

For those who have been keeping up with what I do would know that I was away in Tehran for a few days. What did I get there?

Plenty of knowledge especially numismatically. The Iranians still keep their old currencies, coins and stamps. I was able to get what I thought was the entire set of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, the former King who lost the throne to the Islamic revolution in Iran. But when I checked back, there was a couple of notes missing. The price was pretty reasonable.

The note I am showing here is not that of the old one. In fact this is the current 2,000 riyals worth around US$0.30. I found it amazing that the note shows the Kaabah. Even the Saudis, it was only recently that the Kaabah appeared on their notes.

US $1 billion?

When I was in Singapore, I found this note and several versions of it including the million dollar. These sold for $2 each. I am not sure of the legality of selling these notes or even buying them.

US Dollars are currently printed denominations are $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. Notes above the $100 denomination ceased being printed in 1946 and were officially withdrawn from circulation in 1969. These notes were used primarily in inter-bank transactions or by organized crime; it was the latter usage that prompted President Richard Nixon to issue an executive order in 1969 halting their use. With the advent of electronic banking, they became less necessary. Notes in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, and $100,000 were all produced at one time but never the $1,000,000 or the $1,000,000,000 which is reproduced above.