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Some thoughts on building models of all types and sizes


Some thoughts on building models of all types and sizes

Welcome. If you have not visited Minature Buildings before can I suggest you begin with my Aims and Scope article or at the Home Page. If you have visited before - welcome back. I hope this article is of interest to you.

KLM

It is time to put a page up about the KLM houses. If you are a fan of miniature buildings, (and you would have to be to be here?) you will almost certainly have come across the little blue glazed pottery houses distributed to (business class) passengers by Dutch airline KLM since 1952. We have a line of them across the top of our kitchen cupboards. As do countless other Netherlands' households. They almost qualify as a Dutch institution. They are a proper collectors item.

I am not going to attempt to try and explore the subject in depth. That has already been done. There are even books dedicated to them. A good starting point is a posting by Bonnie Parron in KLM's own site. There is even an official KLM smartphone app about them.

A rather special house. Number 100 in the series.

But I will give you just a taste of them. Which is a carefully chosen turn of phrase. The story is that restrictions on gifts to passengers were got around by serving alchohol in containers shaped as little model houses with gin or another liquer. A story detailed on the OMAAT site. From the 1980s they were filled with the Dutch classic Bols genever. Each little model has a sealed stopper at the top masquerading as a chimney. Though as time went on, and the gift rules changed, not every house was filled and the need for the stopper disappeared.

If you want to know more here are few links. A Google image search for 'klm houses' will give you all the pictures you could possily want.

KLM houses.com has a lot of information. But it is a commercial site selling the models. As is klmdutchhouses.com https://www.klm-huisjes.nl/miniatures/ has more about the individual houses e https://kingdombythesea.nl/site/en/gallery/collection/klm-house-collection/


As always, please e-mail Miniature Buildings if you have something to add. Comments, criticisms, extra thoughts, pictures, or even complete articles for inclusion in the Miniature Buildings site are all welcome. Or if you would like to be added to my mailing list to hear when a new article is published.

David, March 2019