Ex-world chess champion Anatoly Karpov puts up Belgian stamp collection for sale

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

Not really chess news but then anything connected to one of the world's best chess players and former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov is news. Karpov has always been an avid collector, devoting the same relentless dedication to collectibles as he has to his chess. Like most of his classmates he collected pins and generated a collection featuring about 30,000 sport, Olympic and chess pins.

He also collects stamps however, and the first stamp in his collection was the USSR stamp celebrating 40 years of the Red Army in 1958. But it wasn't Soviet stamps which really grabbed Karpov's interest.

Karpov has himself appeared on stamps, such 

as this one from Guinea

Instead Karpov's attention was drawn by colonies of the British Empire, and also stamps showing animals which could not be seen in Russia such as snakes, kangaroos or zebras. He has gone on to collect chess and Olympic Games stamps from the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece (1896).

Karpov also has a range of stamps from the USSR, France, Monaco, and the Netherlands, but his most valuable selection is from Belgium and the Belgian Congo, of which he has the largest existing collection. The earliest stamps (until around 1869) are notable for their attractive designs. You can read more at this link.

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