If you’re keen on airline collectibles, you may have already got a handful – or perhaps dozens – of the gin-crammed miniature Delftware houses KLM Royal Dutch Airlines items to passengers flying within the carrier’s lengthy-haul enterprise elegance cabins.
KLM has been handing out these fascinating and, now, fantastically sought-after, souvenirs for the reason that 1950s. And each one is a miniature model of a historically or architecturally huge constructing inside the Netherlands or in a area overseas that has a KLM connection.
There are more than a hundred homes, plus some bonus editions, inside the collection. And a brand new one is unveiled every 12 months on October 7 to mark the anniversary of KLM’s founding in 1919.
This year KLM turns 103. So, on October 7, KLM unveiled house #103 – a miniature Delftware reproduction of the Ecury House in Aruba. This is only the second time a KLM Delftware miniature has been primarily based on a constructing outdoor the Netherlands. (A constructing in Curaçao got that honor on KLM’s 85th birthday).
The significance of the Ecury home
The Ecury domestic become selected this year because Aruba will rejoice its centenary of aviation in 2023 and Aruba’s Nicasio “Dundun” Ecury played a widespread function within the improvement of aviation at the island. His son, Boy Ecury, studied within the Netherlands and become a resistance hero during WWII who became betrayed and executed in 1944.
Built in 1929, the Ecury home is now a part of the National Archaeological Museum of Aruba and sits near the web site in which the primary plane to Aruba landed.
KLM’s connection to Aruba reaches returned almost ninety years
A KLM Fokker-XVIII christened “the Snip,” first touched down in Aruba on December 23, 1934, as part of KLM’s first transatlantic flight. Scheduled carrier among Aruba and Curaçao started out on January 19, 1935 and changed into the first flight operated by way of KLM’s West-Indian Branch (WIB). Scheduled service among Amsterdam and Aruba started in 1974, almost 50 years in the past. And there are now every day flights among the 2 destinations.
