As collectors we seek the unusual and we particularly enjoy finding items that few others, if any, have acquired. Most of us will possess some items out of the ordinary, probably rare, and possibly unique. The item doesn't have to be very old, or even particularly valuable and, quite often, the rarest items are ephemeral, with only a few having survived.
From time to time I will put forward an item from my collection which I think falls into this category and I would be interested to hear if any other collectors have the same item.
I will first put my head above the parapet with the following brochure:
Exhibition Chess Tour featuring Lajos Portisch. This 12 page brochure was produced for participants in the tour of simultaneous displays given by Lajos Portisch at Prestige Hotels in England from 10th to 23rd February 1975, following on from his success at the 1975 Wijk aan Zee tournament.
Portisch was the fifth highest rated player in the World at the time, behind Fischer, Karpov, Korchnoy, and Spassky but ahead of Petrosian, Tal, Larsen, Polugayevsky and Kavalek in the World's top ten.
The brochure included a list of the tour dates and venues, the exhibition rules, a blank score sheet, portrait of Portisch, brief details of his chess career and five puzzles from Portisch's games.
The eleven date tour had a maximum of 30 opponents at each display, so, with some spares, there were possibly 500 copies of this brochure printed, but how many have survived?
© Michael Clapham 2016
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