Last week we received the news that, after a short stay in a nursing home, our honorary member and co-founder of the PCN, Jan Verhoeven, passed away on Thursday, August 21st.
Jan had been a board member of our association as auctioneer since its founding in 1987. These auctions, held during every association meeting, were a resounding success, with the association well-funded by commissions from both consignors and buyers. Both the compilation and handling, including the settlement, were all handled by one and the same person and were a very time-consuming task.

One of the highlights was the auction during our 10th anniversary celebration at the Combined Postal Museum in The Hague. There was considerable interest in this auction from as far away as England, Germany, Belgium, and France. Bidding by email and internet communication were still in their infancy. Jan had indicated that he would
manage a maximum of 100 auctions for our association, which would be a whopping 25 years!!!, and that a permanent successor would have to be found.

In addition to the auctions, Jan also produced several high-quality publications, particularly the publication on the Poko machine, which was the only remaining device still on display at the Postal Museum. Jan, along with his friend, Ruud Hammink, spent no less than two days disassembling the machine and testing it with test rolls until they knew exactly how it worked and what errors could occur when using it. This, of course, was done with the permission of the director of the museum. This was made possible in part by Jan’s many contacts in the world of philately.

The most important book Jan produced is undoubtedly the ‘Catalog of the perfins of the Netherlands and OR’, which published all perfins known to date. This book was a huge success and indispensable for every collector of Dutch perfins. After 10 years, a new edition was published containing all the additions and improvements compared to the first edition. This edition contained a whopping 308 pages. And it didn’t stop there, because in 2016 a third edition was published, this time in collaboration with Nico van der Lee, who had taken over Jan’s work as auctioneer.
It was therefore only right that Jan was appointed an honorary member for his dedication and publications.

Unfortunately, due to his declining health, we haven’t been able to welcome Jan to our meetings for the past two years, which was a special occasion, as Jan hardly missed a single meeting and certainly didn’t miss any during the first 25 years of his membership.
Jan has been invaluable to our club, and everyone can still benefit from his knowledge, which he leaves to us through his publications.

Jan, on behalf of myself and the members, thank you very much.

R. J. Slim, Chairman of PCN