Vintage NDSM Shipyard Ashtray (Société ventes exceptionnelles néerlandaise de quai et de construction navale)

Vintage NDSM shipyard Ashtray (Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij)

Rare item, I cannot find another example !

15.5cm diameter approx - large 

Chromed metal

Dated around 1940 - 60's

Good condition for age, with some wear, marks, tarnishing and superficial surface rust.

NDSM is a neighborhood in Amsterdam, Netherlands located on the former terrain of the Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM) shipbuilding company. It sits in the Amsterdam-Noord borough beside the IJ river and can be reached by ferry from Amsterdam Centraal station. After the shipyard closed, the various buildings were occupied by squatters before being gentrified in the 2000s, becoming offices for groups such as Greenpeace, MTV, Pernod Ricard, Red Bull and ViacomCBS.

In 1950, the NDSM premises housed Europe's largest shipyard and is now an industrial national monument. When the previous East Indies Company shipyard at Oostenburg became too small, the NSM built its freight and passenger vessels here in 1922. This was of great benefit to thousands of people from Amsterdam who came down the IJ River. After the Second World War, the NSM merged with the Dutch Dock Company and once again flourished with the construction of supertankers.

During the heyday of the shipyard, at the beginning of the ‘60s, six ships a year were ‘christened'. On 8 September 1938, De Oranje (The Orange) was launched, the jewel in the shipyard's crown. It was the fastest passenger vessel in the world and could carry 800 people.

In mid twentieth century, thousands of welders, carpenters, crane workers and other workmen filled the shipyard which was the size of fourteen football fields. In the largest of the work sheds, dating from 1920, steel plates were cut to size. The name ‘Nederlandse Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij' (Dutch Docking and Shipbuilding Company) can still be faintly made out above the shed. The deafening sound of rivets being struck resounded throughout the shipyard. Outside, the prefab parts of giant ships were assembled on the slipways on the IJ River.