Chess Today Auction

Dear chess friends,

Note that our online chess auction is in progress at http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction/index.html There are 106 lots posted and at the time of writing 208 bids have been registered. Bidding is, of course, most intense around the closing time. Even if you are not interested in buying anything at this point, come and watch!

Our auctions are not just about rare items – usually there are several common, but out-of-print second-hand books for sale too. This time you can acquire many volumes of the Yugoslav Informant and some books from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In order to bid, one needs to register. That only takes 1-2 minutes – but note that you will not get your password instantly – it will be sent to you by e-mail. So, please register in advance. If you decide to register, drop a message to ababurin@iol.ie – that might speed up the process.

Note that bidding will conclude today from 18:01 London time onwards. When bidding on a lot is about to end, every new bid will add time to bidding (this works a bit like time increment in chess).

Perhaps the following information ( a repeat from CT-3018) will be of some interest to you:

I’ve been staging online chess auctions for a number of years now (usually 2-3 sales per year). Our last auction took place in June 2008. You can see its catalogue (in Word and PDF), as well as several other catalogues at our website. http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction/index.html

There were 111 lots in that auction, which attracted a total of 423 bids. 76 lots were sold. Of the remaining 35 lots, 18 were sold after the auction – what happens then is that either the highest bidder increases his offer or the seller lowers his (reserve) price.

The main categories were rare books, periodicals and tournament books. These are probably the main areas of interest among chess collectors.

The highest number of bids – 26 – was registered for lot No 110 (‘Les Echecs Simplifies et Approfondis’ by De Robiano. First edition. Bruxelles, 1846. 568 pages L/N 725). Its price went from 200 euro (initial bid) to 1,369.37 euro (final bid).

There were 19 bids on lot No 90 (‘Pollock Memories: a Collection of Chess Games, Problems’ by F.F. Rowland Dublin 1899. L/N 3195. Bidding on it went from 20 euro to 200 euro.

The highest price was fetched by lot No 108: ‘Essays on Chess’ by Trevangacharya Shastree. Bombay, 1814. 178 pages. L/N 2164. It attracted 18 bids and bidding went from 500 euro to 2,900 euro. This shows what happens when a truly rare item comes to the market.

Among tournament books, those published in French are pretty rare. That was once again confirmed by fierce bidding (13 bids) on lot No 10, Le Tournoi d’Echecs de Saint-Sebastien, by J. Mieses and M. Lewitt. Paris, 1911. 170 pages. L/N 5306. Bidding went from 65 euro to 533 euro. Collectors know that it’s a scarce book. A similar story was with lot No 2: Traite des Echecs et Recueil des Parties jouees au Tournoi International de 1900 par S. Rosenthal. Paris 1901. L/N 5256 – 8 bids brought its price from 60 euro to 308 euro.

With best regards,

Alex Baburin