English Chess Forum

Philately is not a hobby of mine but I was interested in the stamp on a Christmas card to me from Germany. Its face value is €1.10, the illustration is a black king, the words are Deep Blue Garri Kasparov. A search reveals that the stamp was issued in 2021 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a computer first winning a match versus a reigning world champion.

It made me wonder about British postage stamps (with the sovereign's head) which have mentioned chess. A superficial search showed a Jersey issue in 2004 commemorating the centenary of the British Chess Federation. There was also the William Caxton stamp, though that was more to do with the early printing of a book which happened to be about chess. I expect there may have been an Isle of Lewis Chessmen stamp.

I would be surprised if there are many examples of a British chess postage stamp, especially if we are looking for mention of a player. Paul Keres, of course, appeared on an Estonian bank note. I also searched parts of the Forum for previous discussion of stamps but didn't find anything except mention of Karpov's extensive collection.

There are so many more important occasions to celebrate before chess gets its turn. Recent issues have included "Denis & Gnasher - celebrating seven decades of a much-loved mischief maker and his companion" and "Transformers - epic robot battles captured in stamps".

There tend to be more special covers than stamps, e.g. https://www.ebay.ie/sch/3499/i.html?isR ... ess+stamps

I had a few British stamp sites bookmarked after I was looking at price of stamps for some relatives last month to see if they should hold on to them or not.
Although they didn't have the sovereign's head, Gibraltar commissioned stamps only this year to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the festival there. https://www.wopa-plus.com/en/stamps/product/&pid=74048

See Chess and Postage Stamps, by Edward Winter:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/stamps.html

Stanley Gibbons used to issue Thematic Catalogues

I think their last one for Chess on Stamp collectors was back in 1999 so it will be a little out of date.

ie

https://www.waterstones.com/book/collec ... 0852594711

but a 2nd hand one might pop up on ebay...

Apparently, the first chess stamp was issued in 1947 by Bulgaria. (from an article by Mike Pennell in CHESS, July 1996.)

I can remember B H Wood referring once in Chess to an outstanding stamp collection owned by Leopold Winter of the Brighton Chess Club. Can't recall for certain whether it was chess-themed (unlikely he'd have mentioned it, though, if that weren't the case). No idea what became of the collection after Winter's death.