Personalia

This time we start our short series with a real anniversary as our country’s representative of Germany, Roger Klittich completed the 7th decade of his life on June 3rd. He has been working in the auction business since 1962, chess had been added much later (1993) – after that the house Klittich-Pfankuch blossomed out quite fast to Europe’s greatest chess book auctioneer (as could also be read in the FAZ some time ago). Naturally the collectors of chess literature appreciate this development as well as the professionally made auction catalogues including throughout meticulously collated and described lots: the older editions of these catalogues are meanwhile sold second-hand themselves, surely not a bad sign!

Apart from that the always warm reception by our hosts together with the accompanying refreshments, of course we have to mention here once again Mrs Adelheid Klittich-Pfankuch and Dr Karl Klittich, were responsible that the "collectors’ meetings" in Brunswick - taking place twice yearly as a rule - ranked higher and higher in the popularity range. But such meetings may even be improved in case a chess specific supporting programme promises to give additional pleasure, and we are delighted that in the preliminary stages of the forthcoming 48th auction again a gem has been arranged, namely the visit of the chess village Ströbeck. And the chess auction itself seems to be the most extensive up to now including nearly 1300 lots, an original Selenus and a Codex Alfonso reprint as top items – good prospects for exciting bidding battles!
We wish Roger Klittich many healthy years in his family circle and of course numerous successful (chess) auctions!


Leonard Raymond Reitstein enjoys a certain exclusiveness – he is our only member from the Dark Continent up to now: in his native town, the South African city of Cape Town he looked back on 78 years on June 6th. In the chess world he is above all well-known for editing The South African Chessplayer for many years, a rare and therefore by collectors much sought-after magazine which had been published for over 3 decades from August, 1953 to the middle of 1986. Leonard Reitstein himself was also a little indulged in the passion for collecting as we learn (for example) from the well-known Letter to Bert where he is mentioned with his own catalogue [1982], listing over 2100 items. A (first) chess book from Leonard’s pen was Test Your Chess! (1991), and we have already presented his recent work on the chess history of South Africa (see Member Publications) – meanwhile it should be quite widely distributed at least among our members. We may assume that in chess literature photos of Leonard Reitstein possess a rarity value, I found this page in the Internet where you should scroll further down ...


A further country's representative of our association is known to be Josep Alió, he celebrated his special day on June 10th in the Spanish-Catalan city of Tarragona, now he’s 45 years young. With two other Spanish members – Miquel Artigas and José A. Garzón – he joined together to a small chess circle – the "Círculo José Paluzíe" which also enjoys annual regional meetings – Josep Alió has repeatedly reported about them (see for example the Tarragona meeting 2005). We would be glad if this still young tradition was continued in future and if Josep could carry on informing us about the development and the success of the "Círculo".

Only one day later our new German member Lothar F. Heider from Leonberg (Baden-Württemberg) celebrated his 58th birthday, i.e. merely a few days before joining the KWA. Lothar Heider is also a member of CCI and as a collector of books on chess history and on chess pieces he is interested in our "Bibliography of Chess".




Congratulations!





PS: You will find all previous birthday greetings in our archives!