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The Falconry and Cigar-makers Museum

The Falconry and Cigar-makers Museum consists of two collections, which can be visited in the same building. This website gives some general information on both museums. A visit to the Falconry and Cigar-makers Museum offers a view in the very interesting past of this community.

 The Falconry Museum

The Falconry Museum tells us about the catching and training of falcons in Valkenswaard in the period from 1650 to the middle of the 19^th century. It also tells about how and why the falconers of Valkenswaard offered their birds and services to every important European principality.

What can be seen in this museum?

- slide presentation on the past of the Falconry
   in Valkenswaard
-  representation of a farmer’s living room and of
   a falconer’s livingroom, about   1750
- survey of the travelling of the Valkenswaard’s
   falconers
- information on catching and training falcons
- model of a catching place
- catching with falcons, represented in a
   lifelike diorama
- attributes for falconry
- works of art, books and other documentation
   on falconry

The historical relationship between falconry and cigar making in Valkenswaard

The Hamond family were a wealthy English family who practiced falconry. Son Richard was also spellbound as a young boy by falconry, but due to a (family) row he had to leave his homeland and moved to Valkenswaard. There he took up his abode at falconer Jan Daems, whose acquaintance he had made in England. After the death of Jan Daems his son-in-law Jan van Best became owner and tenant. When Richard Hamond died in 1845 he left Jan van Best an amount of 24,000 guilders and he, 20 years later, used this money to start up a cigar factory.

Cigar making Museum

The cigar industry determined the economic life in Valkenswaard for more than a century. The number of factories grew, from 1865, to more than forty in 1920. Then the production process changed significantly by mechanization and the associated scaling-up led to a sharp reduction in the number of factories. Due to various reasons the tobacco industry started to slump around 1970. 2003 saw the production of the last cigar in Valkenswaard. The Cigar making Museum shows the rise and fall of the cigar industry in Valkenswaard from 1865 till now.

What can be seen in this museum?

- slide presentation on the past of the
   Cigar industry in Valkenswaard
- completely furnished old cigar-factory
   with many original materials and tools
- the transition from handmade cigar making
   to the first machinery
- wide collection of attributes for the
  cigar factoring
- models, pictures, packaging, advertising
  expressions, etc.
- showing the making of cigars