Braunschweig VI 2014

This year's summer auction in Braunschweig was again expected to be a most attractive event for chess collectors thanks to the fact that the second part of Lothar Schmid's duplicates should come up for auction. So it is no wonder that the auction hall on Saturday, 28th of June, was completely filled with avid bidders.

As customary, on the previous day a general meeting of our members had been arranged to start in Lord Helmchen Restaurant in the early afternoon at 1 o'clock, afterwards a preview of the items at Klittich-Pfankuch was on the agenda as well as a lecture by Dr. Jens-Frieder Mükke at 5:30 pm. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the latter, together with Prof. Wolfgang Angerstein (who had again given me a ride from Erkrath) I arrived too late due to several bad traffic jams on the "Autobahn".

Our general meeting in "Lord Helmchen". From left: Godehard Murkisch, Michael Negele, Bernd Schneider, Michael Dombrowsky, Norbert Geissler, Jørn Erik Nielsen, Egbert Meissenburg
Our general meeting in "Lord Helmchen". From left: Godehard Murkisch, Michael Negele, Bernd Schneider, Michael Dombrowsky, Norbert Geissler, Jørn Erik Nielsen, Egbert Meissenburg

A number of our members joined the Friday meeting, and Egbert Meissenburg was once again present as a guest; on the other hand some members were absent (Wolfgang Angerstein; Ralf Binnewirtz; Ron Bleeker; Jan Clementsson; Hans-Jürgen Fresen; Matthias Limberg; Wolfgang Pähtz; Bernd Schippan; Bernd Segebarth; Rob Spaans; Jurgen Stigter; Hanspeter Suwe; Raj Tischbierek) who joined in the evening and only the next day respectively.

  • Bernd Schneider and new member Michael Dombrowsky, the author of "Berliner Schachlegenden".
  • Norbert Geissler, who visited for the first time a meeting of the KWF&A, together with Jørn Erik Nielsen.
  • Calle Erlandsson and Egbert Meissenburg, in the background our treasurer Michael Clapham.

Our chairman Guy Van Habberney has provided an abstract of the meeting:

Some bullet points on the KWF&A general assembly, Braunschweig, June 27, 2014.
18 members present.

  • Foundation: Michael Negele and Andy Ansel have stepped down, to be replaced by Michael Clapham (treasurer), Bert Corneth (publications), Andreas Saremba (database) and John Donaldson (US outreach and CSQ);
  • Association: Rob Spaans replaces Bert Corneth as regional representative;
  • Michael Negele is named Honorary member;
  • Budget: Cash position is positive, 185 members, 17 'payment laggards' so far in 2014;
  • Due to the ageing of the membership (and consequently more non-paying senior members), the membership fee will be increased to 35 € as of January 1, 2015, 45 € for new members;
  • You can now also pay your membership fee thru PayPal;
  • Website: email functionality, Twitter and Facebook are working points;
  • 'Free Rider' issue needs to be addressed: too many people have access to the member's site without being a member;
  • Database: Karl Klittich has kindly provided us with his catalog information since issue number 40; these will now be enhanced with metadata and several search functions;
  • Publications: Guidelines to prospective authors will appear on the website, there are still many copies of Merano 1924/1926 available;
  • For future publications, an ex-ante subscription list will be envisaged;

Meetings: Saint Louis and Cleveland in August 2014, Weimar (together with CCI) in early November.  Check future website announcements for more details.

  • Rob Spaans, new regional representative for the large Benelux group
  • The preview of items in the auction hall, you can identify Geurt Gijssen, Hans-Jürgen Fresen, Calle Erlandsson, Egbert Meissenburg …
  • Two board members – chairman and treasurer – in Lord Helmchen's outdoor area.
  • Egbert Meissenburg and Michael Negele met to discuss the new Emanuel Lasker trilogy.
  • In front Stephen Rothwell, problemist and Schwalbe member, he kindly agreed to help us with first translations for the Lasker trilogy. Next to him (sitting) Hartmut Laue, Jørn Erik Nielsen and Claes Løfgren.
  • The Russian chess book dealer Murad Amannazarov (left, http://chessm.ru/) with his interpreter Sergej Koschmann (http://www.koschmann.org/) from Braunschweig. The man from Moscow was a quite active bidder during the auction sale, here is an interview with him:www.sunhome.ru/interview/exclusive_interview/...
  • Michael Negele takes a snapshot of the audience, "Sammeln – Lust oder Last?" [Collecting – Delight or Burden?] was the topic of the upcoming speech.
  • Dr. Jens-Frieder Mükke (from Naumburg) gave a lecture which was very well received by the listeners.
  • A view of the audience, in the first row Per Skjoldager, Henri Serruys and Claes Løfgren, behind the latter Bob van de Velde with his wife Winifred.
  • Also Bert Corneth was present, left behind Geurt Gijssen and Andreas Saremba.

In the evening most of us remained in Lord Helmchen restaurant to have dinner, at least Wolfgang Angerstein and yours truly who had meanwhile arrived in Braunschweig could join there.

  • Wolfgang Angerstein was quite happy to have bought some desired items at the auction.
  • Satisfied collectors – Per Skjoldager and Norbert Geissler are obviously very pleased about their acquisitions.

You will find still more snapshots in our gallery (16 photos).

A short overview of the auction sale will appear in our next CSQ issue.
Special thanks go once more to the Klittich-Pfankuch family for their generous hospitality, and we have also to mention that already on the next day the "Ergebnisliste" (list of results) of the auction was available online, - a perfect service!

Ralf Binnewirtz

Photographs courtesy of Günter Büsing and Michael Negele.

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