2021
On Christmas Eve the country's oldest company turns 117
This Christmas Eve it is 117 years since the trading company Valdemar Lützen was founded. It started with building materials and coal, but over time the company adapted to the goods that were in demand. Naturally, many people have worked for the company over the years – a whole crowd of them for more than fifty years.
In 1904 Valdemar Lützen founded the trading company Valdemar Lützen A/S in Öström's factory, where he sold building materials and coal. This was the beginning of the company Valdemar Lützen that stands at Skálatrøð today. Valdemar changed the range of goods as new needs arose. He also bought ships, which carried cargo for his own business as well as other cargo to the Faroe Islands from abroad.
The first ship he bought was "Forælders Minde" from Denmark. This ship was later sold, and Valdemar Lützen had the schooner "Sjey Systrar" built, skippered by Andrias á Høvdanum from Strendur. "Sjey Systrar" not only carried cargo to the Faroe Islands but also sailed with export cargo to the Mediterranean countries.
Besides this ship, Valdemar Lützen also had a small lighter called "Diddan". It carried cargo around the islands, but it was also used for unloading in Tórshavn when large cargo ships could not berth there.
From 1930 onwards
In 1930 Valdemar Lützen expanded his business again by setting up a cold store in Öström's factory. This was around the time the ships went over to fishing for iced fish, and households could also rent storage space for food. When the iced-fish fishery was changed over to salt-fish fishing in 1948–49, the cold store was closed.
Around the time the cold store was in Rættará, Valdemar Lützen bought a sand boat together with Niels í Heiðunum. The sand boat was called "Slúkur", and Niels skippered her himself. He landed the sand at a store in Rættará, from where it was sold at the time for house building and other uses. During the Second World War "Slúkur" was sold to Iceland.
From 1925 to 1947 Valdemar Lützen also sold oil and paraffin for Esso, but when Esso reorganised in 1947 so that it sold directly here, Valdemar stopped selling oil and paraffin.
Valdemar Lützen chartered large ships from abroad to bring building materials and cargoes of coal a few times a year. Freight rates were then so low that Valdemar sold all his ships and imported goods with these large ships instead. The coal was unloaded into large baskets and then taken by wheelbarrow to the store. This was done from "Høgu Kai", which had been built next to "Skeiva Pakkhús" for the same purpose. It took a lot of workers, some 15 to 20 men.
It began with a tool shop
In 1952 the company was reorganised again. Anni Lützen set up a small household goods department on Bryggjubakki. When Valdemar Lützen the younger, Valdemar Lützen's grandson, came back after completing his training in Holbæk and Newcastle, the company bought Heinesen's clothes shop in Vágsbotnur (where Miðlahúsið rents premises from Valdemar Lützen today). There the company opened a tool shop, which Valdemar Lützen the younger managed. In the early 1960s Valdemar Lützen the younger expanded the tool shop so that the floors in Vágsbotnur were taken into use: the tool shop on the first floor and household goods on the second floor.
This is how things went in the shop building in Vágsbotnur until the mid-1980s, when it was decided to move the tool shop out to Skálatrøð, so that tools and building materials were now gathered in one place in the new builders' merchant at Skálatrøð. When the tool department moved from Vágsbotnur to Skálatrøð, Valdemar the younger let go of his life's work, because he did not want to move out of the shop building in Vágsbotnur. As a result, the household goods department was expanded to both floors – and it went well.