British Tycoon's Chess Sets with Huddersfield Chess Club to be Auctioned

Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2014

Hello everyone,

The Examiner has reported that a historic collection of valuable chess sets belonging to one of the country’s "most flamboyant and controversial tycoons" is set to be auction. Lord Kagan, a Lithuanian Jew and textile magnate, was like many East Europeans, a seriously keen chess player. 

His collection began decades ago, thanks to his friends, who, when they ventured abroad, would invariably bring him back a present.

After Kagan’s death in 1988 the sets mouldered in storage before his widow Lady Kagan, who lived in Bradley, decided in 2008 to donate them to Huddersfield Chess Club. At the time she said: “I thought Joseph would have wanted them to be appreciated.”

The collection includes Russian sets, Indian, Spanish and military ones, a fabulously ornate Alice In Wonderland affair, as well as a gloriously non-PC monkey one. Read further at the Examiner.

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