European version of the LA Lit and Toy Show
We’ve told you a few weeks ago about our visit to the LA Lit and Toy Show. A weekend completely filled with open houses, Porsche events and tons of fun. Too bad for us Europeans we have to travel thousands of miles to be part of such a tremendous and action-packed Porsche weekend. However, closer home there are some similar events. Ofcourse you know about the Strähle Swap Meet in Fellbach that takes place in November. And less known so far, but an event that is a rising star : the International Porsche Collectors Day in the Porsche Classic Center Gelderland in Heteren.
Mark Wegh, president of the Porsche Classic Center Gelderland, and Henk Koop of the Porsche Model Club Europe joined forces a few years ago. The result is the International Porsche Collectors Day. In the buildings of the Porsche Classic Center Gelderland, close to 100 exhibitors showed Porsche parts, books, models and literature to approximately 1500 visitors.
International interest : visitors and exhibitors from all over Europe
The International Porsche Collectors Day has everything to grow into the European version of the LA Lit and Toy Show. This year the audience was even more international than the previous years. Visitors from all over Europe made it to Heteren. Even visitors from Thailand and Jordan made it to the International Porsche Collectors Day. Billy Karam, who is mentioned in the Guiness Book of Records with a collection of over 50.000 Porsche models, made it to the International Porsche Collectors Day. He was stunned about the number of models at the show. And even more, the quality. For Billy Karam the day was a success and he considers coming back in 2020.
Exactly as the previous years, the range of literature and models offered to the visitors was broad. Rüdiger Mayer came all the way from Stuttgart to present the cookbook Racing & Recipes. Remarkable was the largest Porsche coffee table book : you’ll need some large table to present the 911Millenium book.
For the paper collectors the literature went from the fairly common pieces all the way up to the rare stuff : Of course some copies of the highly collectible Liebe zu Ihm book could be found, as well an original Porsche 550 Spyder manual, rare books like The Last Eleven. But the rarest of the rare, the holy grail for the Porsche Model collectors : the Siku Porsche 356 changed hands for 5.000 Euro. Wow.
