Furnishco, and a director we cannot confirm

The question has two parts. Was Furnishco a separate business at the corner, or a name taken by one already there? And did J. A. van Duyn direct that company in 1932?

Furnishco was the contracted trade name of the Continental Carpet and Furnishing Company: the Furnishing Company¹. The company started out on the Coolsingel, away from the corner. On 2 September 1926 the Handelsregister entered it as H. P. Beens's sole business at Coolsingel 103b². On 2 December it became a naamlooze vennootschap under the Dutch legal name Continentale Tapijt en Meubelstoffen Handelmaatschappij, with Beens as director³. It was a distinct N.V. under Beens's direction, separate from his 1918 Woninginrichting company⁴:

What it traded was largely imported. At the W.I.M.B.A. fair of February 1928 the firm appeared as the Dutch representative of De Coene, the Belgian furniture-maker of Kortrijk, showing Queen Anne, Sheraton, English-renaissance and modern office pieces⁵. At the 1930 Jaarbeurs it listed carpets, curtain fabrics and lampshades⁶. By 1928 it had reached the corner. That year's address book enters Continental Carpet and Furnishing Comp. at 169a, with H. P. Beens at 169b and his brother F. J. Beens at 169c^7 8:

On 6 September 1932 the Handelsregister entered Firma Furnishco as a wholesaler at Rochussenstraat 169a⁹. It dealt in upholstery, curtain and fancy fabrics, carpets, table- and divan-covers and floor coverings¹⁰. In 1936 it advertised a July algeheele uitverkoop wegens opheffing, a total closing-down sale, followed in September by a Likwidatie Uitverkoop¹¹. The advertisements show that a clearance was offered; they do not show that it was completed¹²:

Earlier in that same year, 1936, the January interlocal directory still printed the trade name at the corner, Furnishco, Fa. Meub., tapijten en stoffen, Rochussenstr. 169a¹³; the directory page shown below gives its number as 30047. The corner's next furnishing house would keep that very line¹⁴:

So the trade behind the name is clear, and the company’s own file follows the legal person beyond the shop.

The second question is harder: the evidence points one way but cannot prove it. The 1932 interlocal telephone directory prints the firm under both its names at Rochussenstraat 169 and then lists the private homes of two of its directors on the same street, so a J. A. van Duyn at no. 171 was probably a director of the firm as well as its neighbour¹⁵.

If the directory is right, van Duyn was most likely a director of the Continental Carpet and Furnishing firm as early as 1932, before his own firm traded under his name from the end of the 1930s¹⁶. The printed commercial-register notices name H. P. Beens as director at the 1926 conversion¹⁷. They record that the power of attorney of his brother F. J. Beens was withdrawn in January 1928^18 19. In November 1931 they name Beens as a new commissioner, formerly director²⁰. They do not independently name van Duyn as a director²¹.

In January 1936 the interlocal directory lists Furnishco at 169a and J. A. van Duyn at 169b, with van Duyn on telephone 30047 before his firm began advertising²². Sharing an address or a telephone line does not show that the business, or its ownership, changed hands. The sources used here do not independently confirm van Duyn's appointment. Nor do they show what corporate arrangement lay behind the shared address and number.

The company turns up once more, in a different role. In February 1976 a commercial-register notice named B.V. Beleggingsmaatschappij voorheen N.V. Continentale Tapijt en Meubelstoffen Handelmaatschappij, an investment company²³. It says nothing about how the 1936 clearance unfolded.