Our first greetings go to Israel, Zacharia Kogan from
Rishon Le Zion celebrated his 62nd birthday on December, 6. He has introduced
himself to us as a collector and chess dealer and we are pleased to have
won at least one representative of the KWA in the Near East.
A well-known personality of the US American chess scene is Dale
Alden Brandreth, in Hockessin, DE he looked back on 73 years
on December, 17. The trained chemical engineer (he has some university
degrees – BSc, MSc, PhD) is not only a profound chess historian
and an eminent collector. (Even in 1977 his collection contained about
8,000 items; in 1970 he started up a professional book trade in order
to get rid of his numerous duplicates.) He will be familiar to most of
us as an author, editor and publisher of high-quality chess books, particularly
tournament books and biographies – so the publications
which appeared at Caissa Editions, a division of Dale
A. Brandreth, Books are surely a valuable addition to each chess
library.
I have no bibliographical details about a few early works by Brandreth
which are given in his article mentioned below: Sverdlovsk 1943
and Salzburg 1943 (limited editions; 1956?) as well as "Lasker
vs. Pillsbury" and the tournament book on Montevideo 1938
(both 1958?). Some further booklets seem to have been published at his
own expense: Lodz 1906 international tournament, April 15-28, 1906.
(1971. – 7 leaves); The world of chess literature. (1973?.
– 10 leaves); Collecting Chess Tournament Books - A Fascinating
Hobby. (1977. – 10 leaves); Collecting perspectives from
a collector, dealer. (s.a. – 5p.). Widely known however should
be his work The Unknown Capablanca (London, 1975; New York, 1993),
co-authored by David Hooper, a collection of 203 Capablanca games from
minor matches, simultaneous exhibitions etc. which were largely unknown
up to then.
Brandreth’s informative article Some Reminiscences of a Chess
Book Collection cannot be left unmentioned here, it was included
in the jubilee book Bonus Socius (published 1977 on the occasion
of the 75th birthday of Meindert Niemeijer): in it he reviewed his chess
development and at the same time the reader learns quite a lot about the
driving forces of his collecting activities.
We remember very well – namely from this year’s Forchheim
meeting – the Steinitz biographer Kurt Landsberger,
he will complete his 84th year on December, 28. You could read something
about him even a year ago at this place,
meanwhile we have included his two magnificent books in our pages Publications
and we have also recorded at least in pictures his spontaneous speech
at our General Meeting which was
greeted with much applause. Over the American winter he usually prefers
the mild climate in the southeast of the USA – therefore we will
send kind greetings to Florida: ad multos annos!
| This year’s last birthday
greetings go to the Californian town of Pleasanton where Yakov
Zusmanovich can celebrate the New Year’s Eve party
twice: he will be 45 years "young" on December, 31. The
passionate collector of chess literature was born in Moscow and he
lived there for nearly 30 years. After graduating from Moscow University
of Civil Engineering he worked as an air pollution control engineer,
there are several publications by him in this field. Later on in the
USA he changed his profession and he became a mainframe computer programmer.
There is still no chess book from his pen, but his plans, investigations
and collecting activities are about a book project which will be devoted
to those Jewish chess players who survived the Holocaust. Good luck
with your project, Yakov! |
Yakov
Zusmanovich (left)
together with Andy Ansel
|
Congratulations to all!
|
