Fischer - Spassky Top Items by Price

After so many years of following Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), I've learned that eBay auctions follow seasonal trends. For example, the months preceeding the year-end holidays generally have more items than the months following the holidays

This year is no exception and my short list for this post had a dozen items, any one of which could have been featured for the post. By coincidence, the three most expensive items on the list were all related to the 1972 Fischer - Spassky match. Two of those items are pictured below.

Top photo: The item was titled '1972 Chess Championship Spassky vs Fischer Board Position Postcard'. It was listed at US $1,499.99 and sold 'Best offer accepted'. This appears to have been close to the listed price. The description said,

For sale is the complete 1972 World Chess Championship - Boris Spassky vs Bobby Fischer - Final Position Postcards for all games 1-21. Incredible rare set to find even just one of the cards and this is the whole match! You may never see anything like this again! All are postcards printed in Reykjavik with stamps commemorating the match on the front.

The cards show the final position for all games in chronological order; see, for example, the game 2 forfeit by Fischer (top row, second from left) which shows the start position where no moves have been played. Fischer had the White pieces in the game.

While philatelic items related to the 1972 match are common on eBay, they usually fall well under the range for the 'Top Items by Price' series. I had to go back to Fischer - Spassky Autographs (April 2010) for a previous example.

Bottom photo: The item was titled 'Iceland chess - World Chess Championship 1972 - green ticket to games 1-24'. It sold for US $945.35 after five bids from three bidders. Its description said,

Memorabilia from the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland 1972 where Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky played for the World Chess Championship title. Very rare admission ticket to games 1-24, ticket is no. 135. Size aprox 17,5 x 6,5 cm.

For a previous post on the same subject, see Fischer - Spassky Tickets (August 2022). I wonder what the green ticket cost in 1972.

The third Fischer - Spassky item, not pictured above, was related to the items in a post from the beginning of this year, Signed by Fischer, Spassky, and Petursson (January 2023). The latest auction had the same price and the same description as the earlier auctions.