12 August 2022

Fischer - Spassky Tickets

In A Wizard or a God? (August 2022), my most recent post in the series 'Top eBay Chess Items by Price', my short list had a number of items related to the 1972 Fischer - Spassky Match (m-w.com). Two of the items were for tickets to the match, shown below.


Top: Game 2 • Bottom: Games 1, 6, and 12

The item on the top was titled '1972 World Chess Championship PSA AUTHENTIC Ticket BOBBY FISCHER Boris Spassky', and sold for $1500.00 'Buy It Now'. The description said,

This AUTHENTICATED ticket was for match 2, which BOBBY FISCHER famously forfeited as he demanded that the TV cameras be removed. This Match 2 ticket to the 1972 World Chess Championship is AUTHENTICATED by PSA!!! Full Authentic Ticket, Authenticated by PSA!!!

This is an awesome piece of history and was such a dramatic event during the Cold War, that even movies have been made about it! This match #2 was held on July 13th, 1972 in Iceland. VERY VERY LOW POP COUNT IN PSA!!

For more about PSA pop count, see What Does POP Mean in Sports Cards? (ballcardgenius.com). The page informs,

POP is short for "population," and is used to reference the scarcity of graded cards or how many there are in existence. For instance, a POP 1 PSA 10 card would mean it’s the only one in existence. a POP 18 would mean there are 18, and so on.

The item on the bottom was titled '1972 World Chess Championship Ticket Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky - LOT'. It sold for '$390.00 or Best Offer', which appears to have been around $350. Its description said,

1972 World Chess Championship Ticket Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky - Three tickets - 1 6 12. For sale is this full issued and used tickets from the eighth game of the Bobby Fischer versus Boris Spassky World Chess Championship held in Iceland in 1972.

That description doesn't make complete sense. The second sentence says, 'full issued and used tickets from the eighth [8th] game'. Does 'full issued and used' mean the attached postage stamp and its corresponding postmark? The postmarks say, '25.VII.1972', '27.VII.1972', and '10.VIII.1972', respectively.

***

Later: I neglected to mention a couple of points that give context to this post. First, it is the latest in a series of Fischer Friday posts where the previous post was Cold Warriors of Chess (August 2022). Second, on this day 50 years ago, the players were between the 13th game, played 10 August, and the 14th, played 15 August. Spassky, who had lost the dramatic 13th game, requested his second time-out for the 14th game, which was scheduled for 13 August.

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