Expecting the Unexpected

There's a popular boardgame around that's (now) called Catan.  It was originally The Settlers Of Catan, or rather, in the original German, Die Siedler von Catan. 

My set of the base game is the original German version which is fine as there's not much text on the cards and it came with a rule translation.  When the rights to the game were sold to the publishers of the English language version they didn't sell the rights to the artwork - so every English version has different (inferior) artwork, and different size cards.

There are expansions to this game and finding them in a form that match my base set is nigh impossible now (the game dates from the 90's) so I was pleased to apparently find a matching copy of the 'Cities and Knights' expansion at the bring & buy at the games expo this year, for just a few quid.

However, unpacking it I find not only the expected German expansion, but a whole base game plus a different expansion - in the English format.

Not sure whether I've won a lot of spare bits, a lot of incompatible cards, or a game without a box.

...but it makes for an emergency blip.