Still a danger of fragmentation of Orange-Nassau jewelsArchived Message
Posted by Henri M on March 23, 2014, 5:24 am
In an old article in NRC Handelsblad about the immense inheritance from the late Queen Juliana also the jewels were mentioned.
In 1963 Queen Juliana decided to place her jewelry collection into the Foundation Regalia of the House Orange-Nassau. The Board of the Foundation is formed by the four heirs of Queen Juliana: Princess Beatrix, Princess Irene, Princess Margriet and Princess Christina. Queen Juliana issued a special remainder when the Foundation was established: each of her four daughters have an equal share. In case of death of Queen Juliana (2004) the shares are accessible but with the restriction that when one of the daughters wants to sell her share, it needs to be offered to the other heirs first.
Here lies the danger for the fragmentation. It means that -for an example- Princess Irene holds 25% of the value of all possessions combined in the Foundation Regalia (which must be immense, think about all those parures, the diamonds, the pearls, the sapphires...) and wants to exchange it for cash, she needs to offer it to her sisters first. Imagine that neither Princess Beatrix nor Princess Margriet nor Princess Christina wants to "outbuy" Princess Irene, it can still be offered to an auction house...
There is no real danger for it, the article from 2004 stated that Queen Juliana created funds for her three youngest daughters which generate an -indexed- annual income. 10 years ago (2004) this was 116.666,-- Euro per daughter per year. We are 10 years further now and each year that amount is adapted to the inflation. This is apart from the reimbursement of costs the princesses make and apart from the personal wealth (the inheritances from their grandmother, mother and father) so I think there is no necessity to sell items, but in theory still the beautiful collection can be partly sold when one of the four wants to see cash.