How it started:

As a Dutch kid of 6 years old I was fascinated by the stamp collection of my granddad. I remember sitting at the table of my grandparent’s apartment looking into all my granddads stamp books. It must have been the colors, reflections or all those different countries where the stamps came from which hit me. So I started to collect them myself. At the beginning I collected stamps from all over the world but soon I realized that this was a pointless exercise, so I reduced my collection to a few countries. In the meantime my dad started to collect all there was, philatelic spoken, from Indonesia.

In the seventies, I must have been 11 or 12, he send me some first flight covers from the KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, the company he had worked  for (served for 40 years). These covers were filled with nice stamps and cancellations from abroad. I didn’t know at that time that these covers would be very interesting/important later in my “collection career”.

So many years later (1993), already working for KLM, I became more interested in the postal history of the KLM (“The Flying Dutchman”). Being the oldest airline in the world (founded in 1919), flying under its original name, the KLM developped a very rich history. I became a member of the society/club “De Vliegende Hollander” (The Flying Dutchman). This society/club brings enthusiasts of postal/philatelic aviation together.

The Collection:

I started a collection of KLM first flight covers (also return flights), test flights and special flight covers. These covers have flown from and to the Netherlands, but also flew to and from the Dutch East Indies and West Indies. Some covers have flown between the Islands of the Dutch East Indies by the KNILM (“Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij”). All these covers tell a story so I became more interested in documentation, I just wanted to know more about the history. Building up my collection I also started to collect other KLM memorabilia/collectables (medals, porcelain plates/tiles, biscuit boxes, cutlery etc.).

Some of these memorabilia are shown on this website. If you have any comments/need advice (eq. publishing) or if you have some great KLM items that I might be interested in please feel free to contact me. Click on the button "SEND AN EMAIL"