THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK “ORANJE BOVEN”

You can see all the original photos  Jack Botermans made from our collection  for this book in our PHOTOS gallery on this website Album Nr 2

In the autumn of 2007 we were in a shop in the town of Ermelo searching for items for our collection. We asked the lady in the shop if she had any Royalty souvenirs. A man who was taking photographs in a corner of the shop heard this and asked us if we had a large collection of Dutch Royalty memorabilia. We got talking and he told us he was going to make a book on the most important events of the Dutch Royal family and he wanted to accompany this with photos of memorabilia, also known as Oranjalia made for these events.

A few weeks later he came to our house for a couple days and took photos of most of our collection. He also took photos in the Museum on the house of Orange in ‘s Gravendeel (now closed). Also in de Zevende Hemel in Apeldoorn and in the collectors shop Blikvanger in Ermelo.

We also helped him with a lot of historical background information. Together with Wim van Grinsven, who was responsible for the text, they made this beautiful coffee table book.

This year march first it is exactly 10 years ago the book  was published by  publisher Teralannoo.

In the same month the book came out we met Queen Beatrix at the opening of the exhibition in Amsterdam created to celebrate her 70th birthday. A small part of our collection was shown there and the Queen told us she was impressed by our collection. A copy of the book was presented to her a few weeks later.

The book is now out of print but sometimes can be bought on the Internet auction sites or through second hand book sellers.

Jack Botermans made over 50 books mostly on nostalgic topics. He is also known for his puzzle books.

Some of the photos were also published in two of his other books.

1) Het vergeten Indië with Heleen Tichler ( The forgotten Dutch indies)

2) Gezelligheid kent geen tijd with Wim van Grinsven ( on typical Dutch traditions)