Rustenburg-Berkhout 1908

Recently I acquired the following postcard which shows the Oostpoort in Delft:

Oostpoort Delft

By some curious coincidence postcards with this Delft city gate on them seem to have been regularly sent at strange times or from strange places. I possess, for example, some quite rare postmarks with 'night hour intervals' on several Delft gate cards. When sorting through a new collection of Delft postcards, the back of this particular one caught my attention:

Rustenburg to Berkhout, 1908

The postcard was sent from the hamlet of Rustenburg (≈ Resting Town = Quiet place), near Ursem (≈ House of Uri), to the town of Berkhout (Birch Forest) which is situated about 10 kilometers to the east. The Rustenburg cancel belongs to the Small Round Postmark type which was effectively the predecessor of the Berkhout type cancel (Large Round Postmark). The Rustenburg post office stayed in use until the 31st of December 1909, since the hamlet's proximity to Ursem made it probably not longer viable. The following contemporary maps give an impression of the distance between Rustenburg and Berkhout, as well as an indication of the vicinity of Ursem. 

Rustenburg to Berkhout

Rustenburg to Berkhout Small scale

Ursem (bottom) and Rustenburg to its northwest

The 18th of March 1908 was a Wednesday and the Rustenburg postmark reads 4-8N which means that the card was cancelled between 4 and 8 p.m. The Berkhout arrival postmark of the following day reads 12-4N (between 12-4 p.m.). Why did it take almost a day to travel between these almost neighboring places? Compared to other postcards I have this is remarkably slow...

Rustenburg Small Round Postmark on a Vürtheim 1 cent stamp which meets the printed matter rate of 1908. 

The sender of the card lived on the Noorddijk, east of Rustenburg. She misspelled her place as 'Noordijk' on the card, probably due to the way West Frisians pronounce Noorddijk. Not Nóórddijk with accent on the first syllable, but Noorddíjk with accent on the second syllable, making the first 'd' quite irrelevant. The same occurs with Ursem which should be pronunciation as Ursém not Úrsem as all the ignorant Hollanders do... 

The addressee was called Bavonia Bakker, a typical late 19th century West Frisian name, latinized of course, as the name is derived from Baaf(je). 

 

Dutch Field Post Office (NAPO 880)

During my stay in Sliema (Malta) this spring I payed a visit to the local stamp shop, aptly named Sliema Stamp Shop. The owners were very polite in helping me when I asked for Dutch covers. My search turned into a real quest though! Initially they thought that had only some Dutch stamps. After some minutes one of the owners found a stock book entirely filled with European stamps other than Malta, Italy and the UK. Alas, there were no gems inside, as the Dutch stamps were mainly Juliana and Beatrix definitives. So I turned to a large bookcase opposite of the counter which was stuffed with a range of boxes containing a mix of European covers. Apparently, the owners never sorted this material because I bumped upon some great Dutch covers. All post-war era, but interesting combinations and registered items nevertheless. It remains a mystery how these covers finished up on Malta though! One of the covers is shown below, a registered Dutch field post cover:

Dutch field post cover, registered NAPO 880, 1993

The cover dates from 1993 and was sent from field post office (veldpostkantoor) 880. After some research I found out the field post office was located in Seedorf (Germany) between Bremen and Hamburg. In the late 50s of the previous century the NATO embraced a new strategy which was called 'forward defense'. This implied that NATO's first line of defense was to be relocated from the rivers Rhine and IJssel to the Weser river in Germany a few hundred kilometers to the east. NATO asked the Netherlands to relocate their forces to this new line of defense, but this move created a range of logistical problems as all the Dutch active divisions were stationed in the Netherlands at that time. The West-German and Dutch governments therefore reached an agreement to let the Dutch units stay in a German base in Seedorf where there were plenty of facilities. From 1963 until 2006 the 41st brigade of the Dutch army was stationed there.

Queen Beatrix visits the base in 1986. Copyright: ANP photo, Royal Images, Marcel Antonisse. 

The '41' mark in both the senders' address box as the almost illegible black/purple hand stamp point to the 41st brigade. The cover was processed in Utrecht, where all Dutch field post is still collected. The meter mark reads ƒ 8.50,- which comprises both the then valid domestic rate of ƒ 1.00 and the extra ƒ 7.50 required for registered mail. As in other countries, field post was (and is) only liable to inland, domestic rates. I am puzzled a bit why this cover was franked in Utrecht, instead of Seedorf. Similar covers from Seedorf used Beatrix definitive and were cancelled with a Napo 880 postmark: see here: http://www.hsp-veldpost.nl/oefeningen/1993/napo-0880_1993-11-02_vp69.jpg.

I guess that the envelope was sent by the Ministry of Defense, so that the cover was essentially classified as official mail. This might explain the absence of stamps.

Dotted Crown (2): the Muiderslot

Muiderslot in Muiden around 1920 

In my previous post I talked about the quirky Haarlem postmark on this postcard, but now it is time to have a look at its front.

Recently dubbed 'Amsterdam Castle' to lure tourists away from the overcrowded Amsterdam streets, the Muiderslot (slot = castle in Dutch) in the small town of Muiden is one of the most valued monuments in the Netherlands. To actual location of Muiden is on the shores of the former salt Zuiderzee (Southern Sea), which became the shallow IJsselmeer after the Afsluitdijk was constructed in 1932. A contemporary map shows you the exact location of Muiden with regard to Amsterdam:

Muiden south of the red arrow, Amsterdam lies to the left

The castle was built around the end of the 13th century by Count Floris V. Earlier the location of the castle was used by Floris to invade West-Frisia to the north (the protruding 'nose-shaped' piece of land on the the card above) after a devastating flood in 1288 which paralyzed the West-Frisians. Floris took advantage of this situation and concurred us (I am from West-Frisia), by building some imposing strongholds. Legend has it that Edward I of England helped Floris from his own castle building experiences in Wales. Ever since we're fettered, but we did well out of it!

Floris was captured and eventually killed in 1296 by Gijsbrecht of Amstel and Gerard van Velsen. 

Then a messy period started (14th century) and some reports state that the castle was demolished before being resurrected again at the end of the 14th century. We don't know for sure however.

In the 17th century the castle was occupied by the bailiff P.C. Hooft, whose real merits are his poems and plays. Together with important literary figures as Huygens, Vondel and Bredero he reportedly created the 'Muiderkring': a group of artists which regularly met at the castle. 

A feast at the Muiderslot with members of the Muiderkring by Louis Moritz

After the death of P.C. Hooft the castle became derelict. When the French troops arrived they used the castle as a barrack which probably caused even more damage to the castle. In the 19th century the Dutch government wanted to sell the castle for demolition, but King William I objected. By a small miracle the castle was saved on request of historian Samuel Wiselius. The initial idea was to let the castle fall into disrepair to create a romantic ruin. Luckily this didn't happen. When the interest in our national history increased again by the end of the 19th century, the government appointed Pierre Cuypers to rebuild the castle. Due to the lack of archaeological and architectural research available, he made the castle look a bit fantastic when the restorations was done. In a subsequent restoration certain additions Cuypers was responsible for were made undone again. 

The Muiderslot prior to the first restoration by Cuypers (1886).

      

The Muiderslot after the first restoration by Cuypers (after 1895)

The Muiderslot in 2017