An Indonesian postcard used in the Netherlands
When the Netherlands was liberated in May 1945, there was a severe shortage of many raw materials. Industry and trade had not emerged from the war unscathed. There was, for instance, a great shortage of paper—paper for the production of postcards, for example. The printing house of Joh. Enschedé & Zonen in Haarlem found a solution by providing postcards intended for the Dutch East Indies with an overprint.
Joh. Enschedé & Zonen held a stock of postcards printed for the Dutch East Indies with a value of 3½ cents featuring a stamp image from the so-called 'water buffalo' issue. These cards had been available in the Dutch East Indies since 1937 and were therefore regularly reprinted. The text on the postcard is printed in both Dutch and Malay. The stock amounted to 4.263.768 postcards in uncut sheets of 36. On June 14, 1945, 4.148.572 overprinted postcards were delivered to the PTT by the printing house of Joh. Enschedé & Zonen.
Postcard is Kartoepos (postcard), address is 'alamat, sender is sipengirim and name is nama. So the translation of the sentence: Name and address of the sender was: Nama dan 'alamat sipengirim. From June 1945, every Dutch person had access to these postcards, which featured an imprint in red ink: NEDERLAND 5. The old value of 3½ cents was crossed out by means of horizontal lines, as was the country name Ned. Indië.
We know the number 5 from the guilloche series that appeared in 1940. On the left is the black number 5 used on the stamp, and on the right, the red one on the postcard.
With a magnifying glass, a small indentation can be discovered in the second letter E of the word NEDERLAND. This printing error is not very common.
But what about the stock of postcards in the Dutch East Indies? On May 1, 1937, a 3-cent postcard was included in the rate list. Only 5-cent postcards of the 'buffalo' type were available. It was decided to overprint the stock of these postcards in the Dutch East Indies itself with the value of 3 cents. However, Joh. Enschedé was commissioned to print postcards in the 'buffalo' type featuring the existing 3-cent stamp in the same shade of gray as the stamp. The layout of the postcard was adjusted; the coat of arms in the upper left corner of the old card disappeared, but the text remained the same.
In 1942, during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, the term Ned. Indië on the stamp image was changed to DAI NIPPON, but the word 'briefkaart' (postcard) was retained.
Until 1943. For that was when the word 'postcard' was replaced by Japanese characters. As an example, such a card with the addressee: JM van Dort in Tegal, sent on July 16 of the year 2603 by Th. Van Dort in Sidoardjo, East Java. A relative of Wieteke van Dort? She was born in Surabaya on May 16, 1943. Sidoardjo is not far from there. The year 2603 is the same as the year 1943. The Japanese calendar was prescribed in the occupied Dutch East Indies.
After the Japanese occupation, in any case, no more postcards were printed in the 'buffalo' type; instead, the image of a 5-cent stamp from the series printed by the American Bank Note Company in New York was used. Only the value was changed to 3 cents, because a stamp of that value was not available in this series. The postcard entered circulation on April 16, 1946.
The postcard with the imprint NEDERLAND and 5 (cents) was made available from June 16, 1945. The earliest known date of use is June 21, 1945. On July 1, 1948, the postcard was taken out of circulation. 
Another informative and pleasant story to read. My compliments. You even learn some Malay from it yourself.
Sipengirim: Willem
three and a half cents using a franking machine….
Dear Cees Janssen,
It is indeed my family. My oldest brother Rob van Dort still has a few of those postcards in his photo box.
Th. van Dort is my father Theo van Dort, who worked at the Tjandi sugar factory at the time.
He was murdered by the Pemuda during the Bersiap period and was later reburied in Surabaya at Kembang Kuning Cemetery.
There was family in Tegal, Jacobus Maurits van Dort.
Warm regards from Wieteke van Dort
A reaction like that is great, making a postcard even more interesting.
It just goes to show that Dutch celebrities, in this case Aunt Lien, also read and keep up with this beautiful blog.
I still have 8 of these handwritten postcards (with Japanese characters). They contain entire stories (in Malay). I think it would be interesting to have them translated. But does anyone have any idea if these cards still have any value?
Dear Cees,
Do you also have an image of the text side?
It is probably the last message my grandfather sent to my father. He was also interned shortly afterwards and did not survive.
Regards,
Rob van Dort
Thank you very much for this explanation. I bought such a postcard on eBay more or less by chance a few years ago, but never understood the background. I always just assumed that someone was using a Dutch East Indies card in the Netherlands amidst the post-war chaos.
Rob Hoppel
Who can give me information about a postcard from the Dutch East Indies - Kartoepos 1946 no. 11 type f (fibrous grey cardboard) Peringatan Hari Kemerdekaan? In the Geuzendam, I can only find the postcard with the wounded soldier as number 11. When I look at the image, I only come across postcards (under numbers 8 & 9 Geuzendam) in various shades of black. Green is unknown to me, as the image is supposed to be.