Some people collect comic books, baseball cards, coins, or made in Occupied-Japan figurines.  I have a friend that collects National Geographic magazines and another buddy that collects historical table gaming military figures.  I collect KLM blue and white canal houses.  An odd choice for a middle aged married Engineer with a woodshop, forge, and machine/fabrication shop, but it is what I nerd-out on.  I am pretty far down the rabbit hole of this little pastime and am currently building a series of shelves in our kitchen breakfast nook, complete with lighting, to hold and display my little collection.  It is fairly harmless though and I don’t think that my wife will leave me for spending our 401Ks on a specific miniature or for selling my sweet dad-bod at the airport to a KLM flight attendant that is my hook-up, my pusher.  Neither is likely to happen.

A little history about the houses:

Once upon a time, when you could still smoke on airplanes and people got dressed up to travel, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) regulated all manner of aviation-related policies/laws in the US and before the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act everything from ticket prices to routes and schedules were subject to government approval. It applied to US carriers, foreign carriers operating within the US and US/Foreign airlines flying into and out of the US.  The general idea for all the regulations was to ensure an equal playing field among airlines.

There were a number of rules that prohibited airlines from incentivizing passengers, say offering a free hotel or free drinks to passenger so that would choose one carrier over another as all carriers had to charge the exact regulated price for any given route.  Since and gifts or freebies or incentives could be construed to have a monetary value, changing the customer’s overall cost for a flight, they were not allowed by CAB rules. 

All the Airlines of the day tried to bend, bypass, or ignore these regulations in some way and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was no exception.  Starting in 1952, flight attendants began presenting World Business and Royal Class passengers small blue and white ceramic Delft houses, which paid tribute to the Dutch canal houses.  The miniature houses were/are hollow, and filled with Dutch gin (known as Jenever). This was obviously against the rules, or was it…

KLM responded to the then criticism with: “Is there a law that tells us drinks have to be served in a glass?”  What the customer did with the bottle after their sip of gin was up to them.  The tradition continues to this day and I am one of a small group of folks that are always on the lookout for a new house, an older version of one I already own, or planning travel specifically so that my trip will include the presentation of a new house.

Today, the gin comes from the famous Dutch BOLS distillery, but before the 1980s, the houses were filled with liqueur from Dutch distilleries Rynbende and Henkes. Most of the miniatures depicts a real house in the Netherlands (with a couple of exceptions), with a new model being introduced on October 7 of each year.

Production was random until 1994, with spurts of houses sometimes being produced in rapid secession, then none produced for several of years.  Then in 1994, 15 houses were produced in honor of KLM’s 75th anniversary. This brought the number to exactly 75 – Marketing…. The number of houses in the series has kept pace with KLM’s age ever since.  The houses themselves were produced by the Royal Goedewaagen in Gouda until 1995, but their manufacture was moved to Asia early that year.  This year 2019, will be the 100^th year and I am currently chomping at the bit for #100.

More than 800,000 KLM-houses are produced each year and around 725,000 Genever-filled and 79,000 unfilled KLM Houses are loaded onto KLM aircraft yearly. The unfilled ones are provided for destinations in the Middle East due to alcohol regulations in that area of the world.  My very first house was an un-filled one from a flight between Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi in 2003.  In the past, KLM gave the Middle-Eastern bound passengers miniature houses that served as ashtrays. When putting the cigarette in the hole at the back of the house, the smoke would come out of the house’s chimney.  Houses: 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 27 all came in ashtray form.  I would commit a serious misdemeanor to own a complete set of the ashtray versions.  Seriously…

Apart from the standard series of houses, a few miniatures have been issued without a number. The Royal Palace Amsterdam, Goudse Waag cheese weigh house in Gouda, Paleis het Loo in Apeldoorn, Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam, and the Hall of Knights in The Hague all have a limited-edition, KLM version of themselves.  The only house so far that was produced, but not based in the Netherlands is House No. 85. This is a model of the Penha building, the most famous house on Curaçao, which is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There is also an ‘unofficial’ miniature house, the Curaçao Cottage, issued by the government of the Netherlands Antilles to commemorate 75 years of service. The house was filled with a local drink instead of the customary Dutch gin. In contrast to the typically Dutch and generally rectangular canal-side houses that make up most of the set, Cunucu House has a rounded, thatched roof form.

This is not a super hard or expensive collection or hobby to get into.  Friends and family know about my “little collection” and I have had friends pick them up for me on trips abroad.  A friend and colleague once brought me one with two commemorative matching KLM coffee cups back from a visit to the Netherlands.  He has since started collecting the houses himself, has began taunting me with his finds, and is now dead to me. We will not speak his villainous name.

If you get bitten by the tiny house bug you can, like me, hope for a flight upgrade or pick them up here and there at antique stores or Craigslist or flea markets.  You could also go “all in” and get a 1-99 respectable set for around $1600 and then start hunting the edges of the internet for the hard to find, unique, and old versions of houses and buildings.  Regardless of how you start or where you are in your decent into tiny Dutch house madness (I have the KLM Delft house app loaded on my phone…), all the collectors I have ever met in real life (a total of 6 people) and internet collectors have a hit-list of houses.  The houses on my list are:

1. The above mentioned ashtray versions
2. The Cunucu Cottage
3. Early versions of houses: 47, 48, 87
4. Any version of houses:  95, 97, 99, and the #100 that will come out this year.
5. Royal Palace on Dam Square in Amsterdam, which is the jewel of any KLM house nerd’s collection. It was made to scale in Delft Blue by Bols, the creator of Jenever. In the 1970s and 1980s, all newlywed couples who flew on KLM received one as a gift. The series was limited to several thousand.
6. Goudse Waag (Cheese Weigh House) in Gouda, which was given to newlyweds flying KLM on their honeymoon between 1995 and 2005. These houses are no longer in production and I want one.
7. Frans Hals Museum, which formed part of a special edition that didn’t actually belong to the set. It is also not numbered. In 1962, the ‘Museum’ house was only awarded to tourists from Japan. On the flight from Japan to Amsterdam, they were given a special voucher granting them entry to the Museum.  When/If they arrived at the museum and presented the voucher, these tourists received the complimentary miniature. There are therefore only a small number of these KLM miniature houses in circulation around the globe.
8. House of Bols
9. Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights), Only 300 were produced and were gifts to the KLM Management Board.  I saw one for e-bay once that went for over $1700.
10. The Hotel New York
11. Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (National Maritime Museum)
12. Huis ter Kleef – “Blue Delfts exclusively made for Huis ter Kleef by KLM and BOLS. Not issued on board of KLM flights. HKDNP” is written on the bottom of the house.
13. Concertgebouw
14. Carré Theatre
15. Het Loo Palace
16. Then there are special issues like new a flight route commemorative house (1988 Vancouver to Calgery), The Las Vegas Sales Conference 2001, etc…

Links that help with the descent into Tiny House Madness:

https://www.klm.com/travel/us_en/prepare_for_travel/on_board/travel_classes/miniatures.htm

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/klm-houses/id371664245?mt=8

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/klm-houses-unofficial/9nblggh5bwbz?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_KLM_Delft_Blue_houses

https://www.klmdutchhouses.com/

https://www.klmhouses.com/

http://www.miniatuurhuisjes.nl/

https://ellyvandriel.nl/klm/specials/

A video about the houses, produced by KLM: