Somebody gave me today a whole chess library... plus boards, a clock, etc! Am I dreaming or what?

My wife sent me a message this morning: "There is a woman offering chess books for free". I called the woman, and fortunately she is almost a neighbour of me!  I told her that I would take everything what she has, so she doesn't have to pick up the phone this morning anymore. 

Her husband was a chess player who died recently. She wants to keep only a single chess board with the pieces, but give everything else for free. She gave me several bags full of books, among others 40 volumes of the publication series "Tschaturanga", published by Victor Korschnoi since 1978. The books are wonderful, and several of them are expensive, as they are not available anymore. Really good stuff!

The gave me also several outdated opening books that I will bring to an antiquarian bookshop (a lot of these books I have already). And several books on strategy and endgame that I have in my personal library, as books by Ludek Pachman (some people swore that these are among the best books on strategy ever published).

But some of the books are new for me, as for example the first German edition of "Richtig Opfern" by Rudolf Spielmann, a book on middle game by Jan Timman, one with games of Garry Kasparov, and many others.  I received also two sets of old rubber stamps once used for correspondence chess.

She asked me also if I would be interested in a box full of letters used for traditional mail correspondence chess. The box contains letters from players of every continent, very interesting from a historical point of view (and perhaps for people who collect stamps). And she gave me also three chess boards, one perhaps from the 1950's, one newer but from very good quality, and one which is usually sold for tourists. 

I still have to find space in my flat for all the stuff, but at the moment I am just happy and looking forward to go through these books!

Now thats a find!

Congratulations.

Thanks. Now I have to find space for rhth stuff.

Make sure that you give her a little thank you present

I agree! Post some pictures of the loot. The older/rarer the better 

Maybe send her some chocolates or flowers

Just boards, no pieces. I can post pictures from my collection, though. Let's see if I do this today or at the weekend. Did you see already the pictures of the set I bought in Brazil? I still did not identify the country of origin.

Today I went to an a flea market in Thun, Switzerland. Often I don't find anything, but today it was different. I found among others a wonderful chess board, extremely heavy, pehaps 100 to 120 years old, 48 x 48 cm. It is one of the best boards in my collection! But the price was great: 100 Swiss Francs (similar to US dollars). I saw already few similar boards at least three times more expensive. 

Is offered money, but she didn't want. She was so happy that I took everything, also books that I don't want. Otherwise she would have to stay home all the day and at the end she would probably have still some bags with outdated books left.