May 6, 2019

Jewellery from 1973 back to rightful owner

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:29 pm

Noa Wanders, a 12-year-old boy from Julianadorp, North Holland, was magnet fishing and made a great find that made an older woman’s day: valuables from her deceased parents.

The boy found a rusty box containing two engraved gold wedding rings along with a photo and a name, H. van der Wal. The boy looked up a relative, Selma van der Wal, 63, from Breezand, North Holland and asked if she knew a H. van der Wal. “He’s my father!” she answered. The boy also asked what her parents’ wedding date was, which could be found on the rings. Selma asked her sister and gave the right date to the boy who eventually returned the rings and photo to her.

Back in 1973 when Van der Wal was about 17 years old and no longer living at home, a intruder broke into her family’s home and stole the box containing the rings and some documents. Selma’s mother died very young and it was such a surprise to have something that belongs to her after all these years. Van der Wal thanked the Wenders family profusely and rewarded the boy well according to Facebook.

(Link: nhnieuws.nl/, Photo of unrelated costume jewellery by GlitzUK, some rights reserved)

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September 19, 2016

Cotton candy ring is weird and unique

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 7:58 pm

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Back in 2011 designer Martine Poot from Vlaardingen of Studio Martijntje Cornelia started producing rings made from real cotton candy, which have been shaped by the environment.

“Changing to the wearer’s daily lives, the accessory reacts to sunlight or water, enabling it to uniquely change its form and color. Hand-made, each ring is unique and the transparent base emphasizes the pop of colour.” The rings are made from candy floss (aka cotton candy) and resin.

Poot also sells a cotton candy side table that “will adapt to your interior”.

(Links: www.designboom.com, Martijntje Cornelia)

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August 14, 2012

Don’t throw out WWII stuff, museums will take it

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 1:25 pm

Today, sixteen of the country’s resistance and war museums are calling on people to give them objects from WWII such as books, documents, photos and more that they no longer want to keep. Most importantly, the museums don’t want people to throw anything out, as there is still a lot out there to collect.

Some Dutch videos show people handing in clothing, embroidery, letters, jewellery and more.

And a bit like The Antique Roadshow programme where people have gran’s old pendant appraised, museums probably know a lot more about many of the objects than their current owners do.

Although I have yet to visit many war-related sites in the Netherlands, I very much enjoyed the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, which I visited when I used to live in nearby Nijmegen. It has more than two thousand Canadian soldiers buried there, along with Poles, Moroccans, Pakistanis and others that fought in WWII. Wikipedia states that bodies were moved across international frontiers, so that the Canadians would not be buried in German soil, something rarely done internationally.

(Link: www.gelderlander.nl)

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February 25, 2012

The American ambassador’s jewels have been found

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 12:25 pm

So this news was already covered two weeks ago by DutchNews.nl, but I thought it so remarkable that I felt it’d warrant another mention.

Six years ago Dawn Arnall, wife to then-US ambassador, sub-prime crisis architect and billionaire Roland Arnall, forgot her 9,000,000 US dollar jewellery in the lobby of an unnamed hotel in The Hague.

She reported the jewellery as stolen, though the press doesn’t say to whom.

Hotel staff found a satchel containing the jewellery, which was apparently so big and garish that they mistook it for costume jewellery.

Presumably neither the insurer (who paid out) nor the police bothered to check with the hotel, and the treasure went unclaimed for six months. It was then handed over to a cleaning lady who left it in her linen closet for five years, until her curiosity got the better of her.

The cleaning lady brought the jewellery for appraisement to a jeweler who, the police of The Hague joke, is probably still on artificial respiration.

She then brought the jewellery to the police, who sent it back to the US, whatever that is supposed to mean.

The jewellery consisted of a necklace containing a 4 million euro pink 5-carat diamond, and various other jewels worth 3 million euro. The finder is hoping for a reward, although it is not certain that anybody is obliged to pay one.

Since there are holes in this story big enough to park an entire zoo in, if our readers have any additional information I would sure like to hear about it.

(Photo of unrelated costume jewellery by GlitzUK, some rights reserved)

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November 17, 2009

Antique show lands most expensive item ever

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:58 pm
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The Dutch version of British television series Antique Roadshow called Tussen Kunst & Kitsch (‘Between Art & Kitsch’) has landed the most expensive item ever in its 25 year history. The ‘spectacular discovery’ is a brooch by Frenchman René Lalique, which has apparently never been seen publicly (seen here is Dragonfly by René Lalique, as he was also a glass maker) and is said to be worth EUR 100,000. The owner, a woman, has already sold it. The show will air on Wednesday 18 November.

The brooch ended up in her family by way of Saint Petersburg, Russia, as her grandfather fled during the revolution and brought it with him to the Netherlands.

(Link: mediacourant.nl, Photo of Dragonfly by Chris73, some rights reserved.)

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January 23, 2009

Bomb wreck jewellery exhibition in Groningen

Filed under: Art,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:17 am
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The pieces of a bomb wreck in Baghdad that killed 38 people and that were collected and presented at the exhibition Autobomb III in September 2007 in Rotterdam have now been turned into jewellery, says Bright.nl. For this project artist Jonas Staal worked together with Jiska Hartog and Michiel Henneman, better known as Wanted Jewellery (see pics). The trio used glass and metal slivers from the bomb wreckage to produce a series of unique pieces of jewellery (more pics). The jewellery is on display in Groningen as of this evening.

And yes, the whole idea is not about producing jewellery out of people’s misery (the jewellery is not meant to be worn), but discussing the bombings and the idea of jewellery being used as a means of questioning social issues.

(Link: bright.nl, Photo: Hartog, Henneman and Staal)

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