It was on August 31, 1898 that Queen Wilhelmina turned 18, old enough to officially become Queen of the Netherlands. Her father, King William III had died in 1890, but since Wilhelmina was only 10 at the time, her mother, Queen Emma, had become Regent until Wilhelmina reached the age of 18.

On September 6, 1898 Queen Wilhelmina was inaugurated in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.

On April 30, 1815 King William I had instituted a special decoration to honor outstanding conduct by military personnel. The decoration was named the Militaire Willems-Orde. Its motto was “Moed, Beleid en Trouw”, which can roughly be translated as Courage, Conduct and Loyalty. Part of getting this honor involved a significant monetary bonus. This of course had to be financed and over time this had become troublesome.

The administrators of the Willems-Orde suggested that, on the occasion of Queen Wilhelmina’s inauguration, they would be allowed to issue a set of special surcharged postal cards. Two sets of four cards each were made available to the general public. One set was for inland use, they sold for 2 1/2 + 10 (surcharge) = 12 1/2 cent a piece (pink addressside), while the other set was for use to foreign countries. It sold for 5 + 10 = 15 cent a piece (light blue addresside.)

The four designs showed art work by C. Bisschop, Jozef Israëls, Jacob Maris, and H.W. Mesdag.

Due to the special printing technique heavier than usual paper had to be used for these cards. What was further unusual about these cards was that they only could be bought at bookstores, and not at post offices. All this has been the cause of extensive discussions over time to determine if these cards should be included in catalogs of Dutch postal stationery. Ultimately Geuzendam’s catalog decided to list them, but it uses sub numbers (12P a-d and 19P a-d) and not unique catalog numbers.
















In 1965 a special stamp was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Militaire Willemsorde (NVPH # 839, Scott # 435).



Ref. C. Stapel, “Het Raadsel van de ‘Moed, Beleid en Trouw’ kaarten uit 1898”, Maandblad voor Philatelie, March 1987