After 20 years of collecting antiques, Nguyen Van Tuan set up his own “museum” in Da Lat with around 4000 items, all closely linked to Da Lat’s history.

Tuan is nicknamed Tuan “khung” (mad) because of his eccentricity. Already over 50, he is still single and doesn’t have a stable job. He spends most of his time strolling on the roads or around waste dumps looking for things he calls “children that the civilized society mislays”.

At first sight, Tuan appears to be a simple farmer but he is in fact a well-educated man. After purchasing some fake antiques, which the sellers advertised as ancient plates of the Chinese Song Dynasty (960-1279), Tuan was determined to enter university. At the age of 33, He passed the Dat Lat University’s entrance exams to study at both history and business management faculties at the same time, . After graduation, he showed the diplomas to his mother and then locked them in his sideboard, to be a freelance guitar and organ teacher and an antique collector.

Tuan now has around 4000 antiques that are all connected to the history of Da Lat city, and which are worth millions of US dollar but historically and culturally invaluable.

He said most of the antiques were founded at dumping grounds or from waste collectors.

Tuan began collecting antiques in 1992. In 1995, he had over 100 items, including special plates used to detect toxic chemicals in cooking of the royal family, the oldest calculators, banknotes and coins in the world, old type-writers used in the French-ruled period, geodesic equipment used by the French after they discovered Da Lat, the first television sets, ancient lime-pots, ancient documents of King Bao Dai (Vietnam’s last king) etc.

Tuan bought very special things from waste collectors, including an Indochina Football Cup of 1941-1942, which was sponsored by Vietnamese King Bao Dai, Cambodian King Shihanouk and Indochina Governor Decoux and Indochina Cup for cycling in 1947. Some people didn’t believe that Tuan owns these cups until they saw pictures of the cups on newspapers.

Tuan said he only collects antiques, and doesn’t sell them. In 2005, a French couple offered $2 million to buy some of his antiques but Tuan refused.

Do Van The, director of Lam Dong province Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that Tuan’s collection is a museum of culture and history of Da Lat, illustrating its history since the city was set up. The collection is also the evidences of East-West cultural interaction.

PV