Henk Visser (collector)

Ivory pistol head from the Visser collection, Legermuseum, Delft

Henk Visser (5 August 1923 – 11 June 2006) was a Dutch arms and armory collector.

Visser was born in Groningen and became involved in the Dutch resistance during World War II when he was still in High School. He was condemned to death and waited three months on death row before being sent to prison camp in Germany.^[1] After the war he went to work for a munitions factory and traveled to Russia and Indonesia, where he began his collection of arms and armory.

Ivory pistols by Jean Louroux from the Visser collection

His collection was documented by the curator Jan Piet Puype who discovered that he had important examples of ivory pistols from Maastricht arms makers, most notably by Jan Hermans dated 1660-1665, by Michel de La Pierre dated 1660-1665, by Jacob Kosters dated ca. 1670, by Leonard Cleuter dated 1660-1665 and by Jean Louroux dated before 1670.^[2]

Catalogs

• The Visser Collection: Arms of the Netherlands in the Collection of H. L. Visser, Volume I: Catalogue of Firearms, Swords and Related Objects, by Jan Piet Puype, ISBN 90-400-9881-6
• The Visser Collection: Arms of the Netherlands in the Collection of H.L. Visser, Vol. II: Ordnance, by R. Roth, Waanders, Zwolle, 1996, ISBN 90-400-9882-4

References

• Henk Visser (wapenverzamelaar) in the RKD
• Verzetsherdenkingskruis in 1980
• Lecture by Visser on his collection of ivory-stocked pistold for the American Society of Arms Collectors

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hinderikus Lucas Visser.