Most you've spent on a chess book?

But to answer your question, I spent ( I wasted) hundreds of US $ on material that was  ( at that time) immaterial...

I purchased the aforementioned 'Alexander Alekhine's Chess Games,1902-1946'

( Skinner and Verhoeven , McFarland and Company,Inc. 1998)  new.

It cost me $85 U.S. in the year 2000. It is not only the most expensive of the

several hundred books in my Chess library,it is also by far the best value of all

of them. Over 2500 games* cross referenced by opponent,descriptive classification,ECO code,and in chronological order!

No other combination of books that I paid a similar sum for in total would come

anywhere close to the instructional value of this one book!

*Many are annotated by Alekhine himself.

My system by Aron Nimzowitsch ; it not about the money it;s love for the game.

I don't think I'll ever have to spend more than 50 bucks for a book, but most of my books weren't that expensive. Maybe...$25.

Wow e4forme, that sounds like an incredible deal. My most expensive purchase at $24.95 was Silman's Complete Endgame Course. Having now read it, I go back to it constantly and would easily pay double that to obtain a copy if I didn't already have one.

That's my most valuable book as well. I paid 125 american if I remember correctly.

It was also my first....now I have 400+ books stacked everywhere.

im just getting to grips with the book, ive been through about 8 games so far, it really is an amazing book!

I'm waiting until I reach 1800+ to study it.

Right now I don't understand that much of it.

I have nt spent anything yet on a chess book .. Im working on going to the libary to get a book.. it seems like everyone playing chess here has read or has chess books.

I see them quoteing the book moves... looks like I`ll have to humble myself and get one.. lol!

 Wow, and I reckon spending 200 bucks on a book was alot. I guess I've heard stamp collectors spending thousands for a single stamp. I've spent heaps on my book collection and will likely continue to do so and I don't regret it at all. It may not improve my game as much as I'd like but just reading about this great game is an interest in itself especially learning about the top players of the past. I read in a magazine (I'm sure it was New in Chess) that a German player has one of the largest private chess book collections in the world. His collection has about 25000 books some hundreds of years old and worth thousands. 

£50 for Bobby Fischer's 60 Memorable Games

Just couldn't get it anywhere, now you can pick it up on Amazon for £5

Must have been crazy... its not even a particularly good copy, little black paperback.

$80 for an out of print book.  I've read 2 chapters of it.  Not my  best use of money.

If I ever become a millionaire, I might spend the $600.00 or so on David Delucia's A Few Old Friends.

In 2010 I purchased the second edition of A Few Old Friends from Andy Ansel, a major collector (see Post #21) for $285.  Though I'd purchased chess books from Andy in the past, this was my most expensive purchase for a single book to date.  What a book it is, as you may know.  The photos of the rare and pristine first editions dating back centuries are magnificent; I call it chess porn.

However, my story doesn't end here.  Just a little over two years from the date of that purchase I chose to shoot the moon and buy DeLucia's In Memoriam Special Edition, a 2-volume set (click here) from Dale Brandreth of Caissa Editions for $1,020, which included shipping.  It was a mere bag of shells as Ralph Kramden would have put it.

That was my single most expensive chess book purchase to date, and it will remain so until I'm in the cold, cold ground.

Don't know about how much I've spent but I've given away for free books worth over £100 now (e.g. Capablanca's Best Games algebraic edition).

Okay, so aren't you going to tell us what you paid?

It's been awhile, mid-1990s, but I recall that I paid about $35 each for clean first editions of Alekhine's New York 1924 and Nottingham 1936 tournament books, which, adjusted for inflation, would be about $57 today.

I also remember buying a new hardcover of Maizelis' Pawn Endings when it was first published in 1974 for $10, which, adjusted for inflation, would be about $50 today.

Okay, I understand, but the title of this thread is "Most you've spent on a chess book?" not "What's the rarest, most expensive antiquarian chess book you've purchased or won at auction?"  If that were the title, I wouldn't be posting on this thread.

I spent about $100 on Walker's translation of Philidor's book. Silly purchase. Never read it and, much later, I was able to get a considerably cheaper reprint of a better translation. (Haven't read that either.)

Yeah, but Chessopera is the former Stauntonmaster troll so you can never expect any thing approaching truth from this person.