I have loved the crackling and whispering of the wrapping papers of oranges since my childhood in the sixties. This is also the reason why I am not a professional collector of these papers. I want to hold them in my hands, not only to look at the broad variety of graphic treasures, but also to listen to them.
As a professional collector you have to iron them and make them as flat as possible. Because if you do this my way, you have no chance to get them so well assorted for trading and swapping purposes. My collection grew up to 500 pieces and then I stopped collecting them anymore, because the content of the boxes got too confusing.
On the left side you can see, how professionals like Mr. Dirik von Oettingen collects them, and on the right side you get a glimpse in my boxes.
I am showing you here only some of the minimalistic and typographic ones I collected.
15 years ago I met the collector Dirik von Oettingen at the Bauhaus Museum in Berlin where collectors met for an event of swapping papers. In 2007 he published a well done book (designed by my colleague Betina Müller – Potsdam) where he talked about the history of these citrus fruit wrappers, and you could get a perfect overview about the genres of citrus wrapping papers. Unfortunately it is out of stock.
The original German title: „Verhüllt um zu verführen – Die Welt auf der Orange“ (Veiled To Seduce – The World On The Orange) – ISBN Number 978-3-930752-47-8.
Dirik von Oettingen owns the biggest collection worlwide of citrus wrappers, with about 40.000 pieces, and If you are a collector and really interested, feel free to visit his website http://opiummuseum.de. Warning: The website is veryveryvery old fashioned – to find the content you have to go to the navigation on the top – close on the right there is also a button to stop the music, but when you managed to get inside the system you’ll find an overwhelmingly well assorted resource of citrus papers from all over the world!
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