In the early 80's I started collecting cats. At that time I still lived with my parents, where I shared the bedroom with my sister. The cats were on a shelf in our shared bookcase. From my pocket money I occasionally bought a cat at Blokker, V&D in our city Alkmaar. Under the cat I stuck a sticker with the date, place, shop and price.

Since 1983 I started living on my own, the cats got a place in the bedroom. Initially in letter cases, then shelves were added.

During a day trip, a visit to a flea market or during holidays, I at least tried to find one cat in every town and that's how the collection slowly extended.

From family and friends I sometimes received a cat as a present for my birthday, during Christmas, or a cat was brought home from holidays.

After a move in 1992, it took a while for the cats to be unpacked, after which they found their place on shelves in the guest room.

Spring of 1996, the statues were packed again for another move. Unfortunately, there wasn't a good place to put them in that house, so they stayed packed in boxes.

In this period it wasn’t easy to buy cats, I could hardly determine whether or not I already had them, so the collection hardly extended in those days.

For that reason in april 2005 I’ve put all the cats, 546 pieces, on the garage floor and took photos of them in groups. I took those photos with me when I went on a holiday, it made it easier to see if I had them or not.

After moving in december 2007 to a house with a garage, the cats found their place in glass Ikea display cases. A few years later, an internal move took place. This meant that the collection with now 8 display cases was packed and rearranged.

The collection had considerably grown between 2008 and 2017, mainly due to visits to flea markets, secondhand shops and, last but not least, bying on the internet. Via Marktplaats I found many cats, which I sometimes picked up myself but also had them sent to me.

When a seller only wanted to sell the cats in one purchase, the number of cats I already had in my collection determined whether or not I would buy. An additional consequence was that slowly an amount of double cats extended. These aren't part of the collection but stored separately in banana boxes.

From 2009, the cats were numbered, after which the corresponding data such as date, city, shop, country, price, but also the color and hight were noted in an Excel file.

On our wish list for a house in the German Eifel area, in addition to quiet environment, space for odd jobs, near to a forest, there was also the need for a space to exhibit the cat collection. We bought our Eifel farm mai 2017.

After our house in the Netherlands was sold october 2017, the great packing could begin. At first all glass shelves were numbered and photos were taken. After about 3 months, almost 5000 cats were carefully packed in 123 banana boxes. The boxes were numbered with the corresponding shelves.

After that 32 glass display cases were dismantled and the final emigration from the Netherlands took place in February 2018.

There was plenty to do in and around our Eifel farm, so we only got around preparing the space for the cat collection in december 2018. Little by little, the display cases were cleaned, assembled and boxes unpacked.

According to the numbers on boxes and the corresponding photos the cats were arranged by type in glass cases or wooden shelfs.

Although unpacking took even more time than packing, I also experienced it as very relaxing. Nice to see what came out of the boxes and I was pleased that the packing was done carefully so nothing was broken. My memory of where and when I bought the cats, was most of the time correct when I checked Excel.

By January 2021 there were still 5 boxes to unpack, with the collection containing 5,685 pieces.

For some time now, there has been this desire to open a cat museum, be it physically or online. Since 2010 I had already started photographing the cats, but hadn’t yet found the perfect way to do that.

A more professional Set-Up was bought in 2020. The first photo shows the old/small studio, the new one offers more space for the larger cats and also creates better light circumstances.

April 2021 I’ve searched for a program to create a suitable website and from that moment on I didn‘t want to wait any longer.

Knowing that:

- the entire collection hadn’t been unpacked yet;

- many cats still needed to be photographed;

- it would take some time to put all cats on the website;

- it would take at least another 6-8 months before the website could be launched online.

In the future I would like to offer the possibility to sell the double cats, I've got 12 filled banana boxes.

Hopefully people will admire the collection online. If you want to see the collection in person, please send me a message so we can make an appointment to come and visit.

For other cat collectors there may be opportunities to exchange, buy or sell.

Of course anyone who doesn’t collect cats themselves, but just likes to see the collection, has ideas for the website, or has cats they want to sell or donate are welcome.

Purr greetings Linda