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KHEAN GUAN |
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Founded: |
before 1890 |
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Ceased: |
? |
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Updated: 8 May 2006
Notes:
The following came as the reply to my letter of inquiry concerning the chop KHEAN GUAN. These are all extracts from the TMP.
Note: TMP = The Malayan Philatelist
14 Dec 2004
In TMP 21/33 Andrew Norris asked:
'Can anyone explain the meaning of "Khean Guan" found in small capital letters, reading downwards, on Straits QV 2c and 6c? I have been unable to locate a firm of this name; perhaps the chop is a personal one?'
Geoffrey Rosamond replied in TMP 21/47
"Blithley the journals of 1890 chronicled the 2 cents rose Straits Settlements overprinted "KHEAN-GUAN" in black, the overprint measuring 20mm. It turned out to be the private overprint of the Khean Guan Marinr Insurance Co."
"I cannot be sure that this is a final answer, but I recollect that in the late 1950's I was doing business with a London firm acting as the UK representatives of either a Hong Kong or Singapore Chinese firm called Kian Guam (UK) Ltd. - a firm no longer listed in the London telephone directory. Their manager told me that they were a very large firm in their home territory specialising in the rice trade, and that at the time their insurance business was as Agents and not as insurers. Sixty years earlier Khean Guam might have been prepared to act as insurers themselves; in those days there would probably have been little or no Governmental control in the Far East on anyone wanting to set themselves up as an Insurance Company."
Andrew Norris also replied:
"At one of the Group meetings during " London 1980", Mr Jackson Bosley kindly provided the following information, which I think shows that the overprint is a "firm's chop":
"Khean Guan" now "Kian Guan" is a Chinese trading company which deals mainly in hardware. It was founded in Batavia, and at one time held the dealership for General Motors in Indonesia. The company was "nationalised" by President Soekarno during a purge against the Chinese, but it is apparently now trading again in Indonesia."
The editor Gordon Peters wrote:
"At the meeting mentioned above, Dr WG Wells of Melbourne was present, and had brought along the same question. He had not then seen Mr Norris' question in TMP. He was therefore enabled not only to see the question in print, but to receive an immediate answer."'
Hope all this shed some light on the subject.
Regards
John Morgan
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