Special collection finds a new home in the Chessmen Museum

The Chessmen Museum has been renovated. Its makeover saw the addition of the Rademaker Collection. This collection found its origins in mother and daughter Rademaker´s love for special chess games. An interview with daughter Miranda.

The collection was started during a holiday, about 25 years ago. Miranda (now 47) was still in college when she went on a holiday to Greece with her mother: “We had seen some nice chess games at a local market there. At the end of the holiday, we had some money left and we decided to buy a chess game. It was a real touristy memento of our holiday. When we got home we decided that from then on we would buy a chess set for a souvenir every time we went on holiday.”

They didn´t realise it at the time, but that was the beginning of their extensive collection of about 300 chess games. Not only did mother and daughter get chess sets as holiday souvenirs, they would buy chess games at flea markets or from fair trade shops more and more often, and their collection grew slowly but steadily. The real turning point came in London, where they switched from picking up nice touristy keepsakes to seriously collecting chess pieces.

Miranda remembers it clearly: “We saw a beautiful chess set but it looked rather pricey. There was no price tag attached to it though, and the store was still closed. We went into a coffee shop across the street, and had some tea and muffins while we waited for the shop to open. This set, originally from South Africa, was indeed expensive, but we were determined to take it home with us. Up until that point we had only purchased chess sets that were worth 20 or 30 euros, as simple tourists, but this occasion really opened the floodgates.”

The ladies deliberately chose holiday locations where they knew they could find an ample selection of chess games. “We would check in advance for shops that sold chess games in the country or city that we wanted to visit. If they didn´t have any, we would look for a different destination. Or we would deliberately make a stopover, like that time in New York. There were two amazing shops chock-full of chess games on the same street there. We shopped till we dropped. We had to buy an extra suitcase just to get everything home.”

A bit different
The ladies didn´t actually use the chess games much. Miranda: “The game of chess itself is not what motivated us to start this collection. We were fascinated by the design of the pieces. It is interesting to see how many variations exist, when the design of chess pieces is bound by certain rules because of the pieces´ function. It was especially important to us that the chess games were different from the ones we already had. When we visited a certain country, we would take pictures of the sets that we had purchased there before, so we wouldn´t end up buying the same set twice.” The ladies weren´t really on the hunt for special materials, themes or games from a certain time period. A chess set just had to be a complement to their collection.

Mother and daughter usually travelled together, but when she was in Mexico by herself, Miranda spotted a chess game she had to have: “I was on tour with other musicians. We stopped for dinner at a roadside restaurant, where I saw an unusual donkey-themed chess game. While the rest of the group was eating, I was negotiating with the owner of the restaurant and talking to my mother on the phone. It was the middle of the night in the Netherlands, but I really had to know if we already had a set like this!”

Multi-layered system
All these chess games needed to be given a place. “Soon there was no space left on the piano, so we had a special cabinet built. When that was full as well, some extra shelves were added to it, so that it became a multi-layered system. After even more purchases my mother came up with the following solution: we would only display half of each set in our little cabinet. The other half of all those chess sets was stored in boxes somewhere in the attic.”

Miranda, who is a violinist, has donated all the chess games to the Chessmen Museum, except for one: her favourite game with chess pieces shaped like musical instruments. “Not only the theme of this set is special to me, I also cherish the memory of the moment we bought it. We were in South Africa and had just taken out money from an ATM for the next few days. My mother went to a restroom to hide the money underneath her clothes, while I looked around some shops nearby. I saw this chess game in a shop window and cried out: “Mum, get off the toilet, we´re going to spend our money right now!” Miranda recalls, laughing.

Close relationship
Miranda and her mother discovered the Chessmen Museum years ago, when they saw the Big Rotterdam Chess Game at the public library. “My mother asked for some information about it and we were referred to the museum. We went to take a look right away and told the owner, Ridder Dijkshoorn, about our collection. It was the early days of the museum and we started lending out chess games to Ridder. When my mother died last June, I could imagine our collection to live on at only one place, and that was the Chessmen Museum.”

When Miranda ceded the collection however, she burst into tears. “I feel happy about it now, but at the time it was quite sad to hand over the collection. It was a hobby that really defined the relationship between my mother and I, and we spent a lot of time together because of it. That feeling of excitement when we came across something beautiful, and the bargaining! Yes, the collection played a big role in our lives and we spent a lot of time, attention and money on it. But at home we were the only ones to enjoy all of the unique chess pieces and now many more people will be able to enjoy them.”

By Marjolein Overmeer