How it started . . . .

In 1979, a number of owners of Ankersteen construction kits met for the first time in the Netherlands to exchange information and swap, buy and sell bricks. The notarised union 'Club van Ankervrienden' emerged from this informal association in 1984. Currently, the club has about 240 members. Many from Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Austria, Switzerland, the United States and even Chile.

Twice a year there is a meeting in Hilversum, attended by some 50 - 70 members. And of course you also meet the other members with whom you have sometimes been in touch before.

What is the association doing?

The association has a lot of documentation related to the Anker hobby, construction examples and the like that can be consulted, and also has some original Anker material. All this is accessible to members. The association also organises or supports exhibitions and displays.

Four times a year, a glossy magazine, the Mededelingenblad (MLB), is published in Dutch, German and English with articles about our hobby and all kinds of association matters. A fixed section in the magazine is 'Ask and Offer' in which all members can advertise free of charge. The magazine is sent in printed form to members in most EU countries and Switzerland, other members receive it as a pdf.

Different types of Anker Friends

At the Club van Ankervrienden, there are large collectors with many tens of thousands of stones that sometimes make huge buildings. But most members are a bit more modest and already have a very large number of interesting and sometimes impressive buildings to choose from with around 3,000 - 5,000 stones. And beginning Anker Friends can also create numerous charming little buildings with just a few hundred stones.

There are almost as many types of Anker Friends as there are Anker stones.
1. You have industrial archaeologists among them, who know all about the history of Richter's Anker Factories and who are still making finds about hitherto unknown construction boxes, stone forms and building designs.

2. There are collectors who collect everything to do with Anker or Richter, including other products from the factory, from cocoa tins to puzzles, from medicine bottles to music boxes, as well as old price lists and rare packing samples.
3. There are Anker Friends who make replicas of stones that are in short supply. Others go even further: they design totally new stone forms if they need them to replicate an architectural style or a particular building as perfectly as possible.
4. You also have the builders, who create new designs themselves and make them available to others. The Baukunst im Kleinen (BiK) committee has already edited many of Anker Friends' own designs into easily accessible form. These are verified by trial builds and then sold to members in print at cost price.

CvA board and MLB editors

Chairman: Wim Lely, cwlely@telfort.nl
Vice-chairman, manager CvA archive and library: Ad van Selms, archief@clubvanankervrienden.nl
First secretary: Willem Lunsingh Scheurleer, wscheurleer@hetnet.nl
Members' secretary: Reijnold van der Poel, info@clubvanankervrienden.nl
Treasurer: Karel Schonebaum, geld@clubvanankervrienden.nl
Board member ICT: Fred Hartjes, f.hartjes@kpnmail.nl

Editor MLB: Frans Hendrikx, mlb@clubvanankervrienden.nl
ditorial support Germany: René Schmudlach, reneschmudlach@web.de
Editorial support USA: Andrew Lucas, alucas@rsu21.net

Become a member?

Membership of the Club of Anchor Friends costs 45 € per year for EU countries and Switzerland, including receipt of the printed MLB four times a year. For the United States and other countries outside Europe, the membership fee is 25 € per year, they receive the MLB digitally.

You can sign up with the membership secretary. To be clear, you do not need to own any stones to do so (yet). To get a bit of an idea of the association, you can attend a one-off meeting as a non-member without obligation - you just won't be allowed to bid at the auction.

Anker material

If you have any boxes of Anker stones, metal parts or booklets at home and would like to learn about them, please send a few clear photos to the association.