I thought on the possibility to start a project in which I present an item and people can help me to categorize it. The idea would be slowly build up the website until the whole collection is categorized and well described.
I think this is an excellent idea. You mention that you thought to "make an inventory, and select the most interesting items to present in a website." but I think all of the items could be of interest to some people out there.
I, for one, love to see peoples collections and any history related to them. The correspondence letters could also be very interesting if they are anything like some of my CC letters where we not only traded moves but also details of our lives. I wish I had saved mine.
Not sure if this is the type of response you were looking for, but it is my 17 cents ... (that's what 2 cents from my birth, adjusted for inflation, is worth today).
I began my collection by searching for a nice chess set in flea markets when I began to learn chess. If I would know everything would happen I would probably enter the first shop and just buy three sets: a tournament set, a set for analysis or to play with friend in a restaurant, and a travel set. (However, I would not enter this weird world of chess collectors…I am not sure what would be the “best decision”, well, who cares, I don’t have a time machine).
I found in Switzerland some Regency sets (I didn’t know in this time that they were very common in Europe). In Hungary I found a beautiful coffee House set, tournament size. As you can imagine, soon I forgot my primary goal and went on searching for other sets…, and boards, clocks, books, and everything related to chess.
My collection kept growing. I had the items exposed in my apartment during a couple of years, but with the time the whole space was taken by books (most related to my scientific research). I have something like 8 to 10 thousand books (and no, I didn’t read all them; I used them extensively for my work, but often picking up pieces of information from several books). And began to keep cats, who love to play chess…
Biggest part of my collection is now in two floor pavements and two basements.
My plan was of course to have a website to present my collection online or to write a book on it. However, I never took the time for this project, especially because I felt I had other, more urgent things to finish. After I finished my PhD thesis (topic was human evolution) I was planning to write popular books based on my thesis, but I had a burnout and didn’t find the energy to do this.
This was 2015. Now I feel motivated and energetic enough to carry out this project, but I still think that I should take some of my time to go through my collection, make an inventory, and select the most interesting items to present in a website.
Why I am talking about this right now? Well, yesterday I found a box full of letters used by a correspondence chess player, and I was amazed - I simply forgot this box in a corner of the apartment! I thought I should go through these letters and try to find out more about the players - not a simple job, as I have hundreds of letters. I even don’t know where to check these names.
This box is only one of several examples from things I have and didn’t have the time to go through.
Another example. Some years ago I found out that one chess book by Alekhine I found in flea market (I payed only 20 or 30 dollars for it) was indeed hand signed by the author! It was a first edition (number 9 out of 50), quite valuable. I wrote about this in the forum and a collector purchased it (he is specialised on Alekhine).
I found in a small shop in Bern (Switzerland) several tournament boards from the Chess Club Bern, probably from the early 20th century. Beautiful patina, I even sold one of them to a Swiss chess collector.
And so on.
I would like to hear your opinion about the topic. I thought on the possibility to start a project in which I present an item and people can help me to categorize it. The idea would be slowly build up the website until the whole collection is categorized and well described. Is this a good idea? The other alternative would be to sold the collection and let other people to carry out this job. I am still not sure what the best solution. I like very much my collection, but I am not so attached to material things. The most important thing is that this collection would be appreciated and not stay in basements for decades.
Thanks for your suggestions!