Model of a Buoy 1873

This is a model of a buoy, made of wood and iron by the 's Rijks Algemeen Betonningsmagazijn. As a historian, what interests me most is the social and economic context for such an object. We can consider the Netherlands as a major maritime power, responsible for a large amount of global shipping from the 17th century onwards. And so safety measures like buoys, and institutions like the 's Rijks Algemeen Betonningsmagazijn to manufacture them, were of considerable importance. A buoy works as a visual code, a marker of safe passage, of navigable channels. It represents the complex economic structures dependent on naval trade and maritime empires. To research this further, we might look at archival records and nautical charts, gaining a better understanding of the role of institutions in facilitating and controlling these activities.