Woman's collection of 56,800 tin boxes
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Woman turns her home into museum with collection of 56,800 tin boxes
Yvette Dardenne, from Belgium, first started collecting lithographed tin boxes 22 years ago - now she has a collection of 56,800. The items, considered everyday objects to some, are displayed in five different buildings in her farm and have now become an unusual tourist attraction.
Yvette's passion started 22 years ago when her aunt gave her a decorated chocolate box from the late 1950s. Since then her unusual collection has grown to 56,800
A lithographed tin box made in Japan contains a 16mm movie of Mickey Mouse. Other boxes contained an eclectic mix of products such as biscuits, soap, tobacco, tea, and medicine
Some of Yvette's tin boxes are decorated with commercial advertising but others depict an event such as a royal wedding or a moment in history
A lithographed tin box from the 19th century shows a bizarre prediction of how the world might look in the year 2000
Vintage lithographed tin boxes, designed to contain sandwiches for children's lunches, make up part of Yvette's enormous collection in her house
A unusual box dating from the 20th century shows people of the Communist Party in Slovenia riding in a bus
Vintage lithographed tin boxes are stacked on top of each other in Yvette's home in Belgium. Dardenne says the boxes are like a history book and describe the major events of the last two centuries through their illustrations
Illustrations of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse and his Disney friends decorate vintage lithographed tin boxes. Some boxes were used as toys, sandwich tins or even a paper weight
Yvette Dardenne shows off three tin boxes which were used as toy handbags by young girls in the 20th century
