Welcome to the Chess Museum

A brief report

The CCI meeting in Cambridge  - like former occasions - was composed of a tasty mix of social outings,  show of chess sets  and short lectures on various subjects, some profound, some less, some amusing, but all of them focused on chess and its history.

The touristic part - discovery of some of the typical pastimes of Cambridge like punting, a visit to the imposing Ely cathedral, a serenaded dinner in one of the traditional colleges -  - was most ably orchestrated by Mike Wiltshire, Mike's wife Sandra and several other good souls  - and possibly just suffered a wee bit from the reigning heatwave.  Yours truly was always frantically looking for a pond to hop in - when I finally found one, the meeting was over!

A bit of sleight of hand was apparent in the lecture program, as half of the lecturers announced did not turn up , and had to be replaced at short notice -  to the surprise of the participants and even of some of the freshly drafted lecturers! 

Cambridge resident Alan Fersht provided a very competently delivered slide show along the lines of his recent book, intending to identify some durable features for non-Staunton chess men by Jacques -  interesting, though not conclusive in some members opinion. Ulrich Schädler from the Musée des Jeux in Switzerland paid tribute to the spiritus loci by outlining the phantastic game projects of 16th century Cambridge professor William Fulke. Jim Joannou gave a very convincing rundown of his ongoing pursuit of the variations of the Status Quo sets by Jacques.  And impromptu appearance GM William Hartston had everybody in stitches by demonstrating how to pile a whole chess set onto one rook!  Collectors also appreciated the humor of having their leg pulled by the Grandmaster turned music critic!

Yuri Averbakh demonstrated via 4 carefully chosen endgame studies how to fascinate children with the drama and theatrality of chess. That is  what Averbakh has been mainly preoccupied with during the last 30 years - the education of the next generations. The lecture on contacts and exchanges between Russian and English chess masters in the 19th century - Schiffers, Petrov, Chigorin etc. - was certainly interesting, even if the nonagenarian  Isaac Linder was not easy to understand - a written abstract would be most welcome in the CCI magazine, or at least online for download.  Michael Mark gave a short talk on some shady aspects of chess collecting, with Bertram Jones and A. Mackett-Beeson as chief culprits - again a written essay would be a great follow up.

The dean of chess collectors , CCI founder George Dean, presented a short video of some of the highlights of his collection, featuring a few sets from a much larger choice to be included  when the video movie project is finished, and most sets of the Dean collection will have been filmed.  These sets - the chief attraction being the famous Good against Evil (ex-George Manaury) ivory set presented by Louis XV to Madame Pompadour - will also be described and pictured in George Dean's forthcoming book. It is notable that Dean as owner of the most important collection of chess sets existing is constantly concerned with making his treasures accessible to the public, in exhibitions, in ledning part ot museums, and now even in the fifth art.

Mark Loost's talk, focussing on  the circumstances under which Nathaniel Cooke registered a patent for the Staunton chessmen, turned out to be an unexpected highlight. Far from being an ingenious invention of Cooke with Jacques, using Staunton's prestige as a marketing instrument, the contrary constellation seems to have been the case. Mark Loost provided convincing arguments for  Howard Staunton as the main inventor, and Cooke, a busy entrepreneur in the printing world, as being a stooge registrar  in order to keep Staunton's name out of the limelight. According to Mark, John Jacques,  who made his name on these chessmen, only was drawn into the affair on the strength of family ties - John Jacques the younger was married to Cooke's daughter. Very plausible, and for me, until proof to the contrary, the definitive word on the genesis of the Staunton chessmen.

But the absolute highlight  was Jon Crumiller's succinct presentation of how he used the London registers in order to trace down all turners, toy makers and chess board makers in 19th century London, follow their various business addresses, length of operation and changes fo ownership. Jon has even gone so far as to pinpoint all the turners on historical maps of 19th C London, permitting the observer to see the "clusters" of craftsmen dealing with chess and similar games! And to top it off, Jon has created  a spreadsheet linked to a biography database involving all the names he has found and identified in digging through tons of London registries and piles of old chess magazines to fill in some white spots!  The amount of work involved is quite stupendous, and will facilitate identifying and tracing chess sets and boards of english make for all and everybody - especially as Jon is providing the results of his travails for free via

www.chessreference.com/Projects/LondonGrid.xls

and

www.chessreference.com/Projects/LondonGridInstructions.jpg

for all interested!  Great applause in Cambridge - and I am sure in the rest of the small collectors fraternity, especially the anglophone part of it. One little tidbit I noted is that Jon has identified two  separate craftsmen named Ayres making chess equipment .....

As a follow-up, Jon Crumiller is now doing a similar work of systemization of chess sets and chess objects as listed in auction catalogues, with multiple cross references and valuations, hammer prices etc. This shd facilitate valuating chess objects, or at least give a general idea of price and value evolution in perspective - especially interesting for anybody who has an eye on the investment angle in chess collecting (almost everybody is at least aware of fluctuating values...) You can  check this Catalogue project  out at

http://www.chessreference.com/Projects/CatalogProject.xls

Change of direction?

After 18 years as CCI president, Thomas Thomsen stepped down in the informal and graceful manner that has characterized his actuation all these years - and the new president by acclamation is  Michael Wiltshire, who organized the whole Cambridge meeting.  Whether Michael intends to change the functioning  of CCI, remains to be seen. Basically he will have to prepare the next meeting in two years, for which several locations were mentioned (since posting this report Mike has confirmed to me that the next meeting in 2012 will take place in Dresden).

 One area that could quickly be improved is the dormant CCI main website, which has been totally overshadowed and made obsolete by the highly attractive CCI magazine website run by Jim Joannou. It might also be a good idea to consider how to appeal to the many "modest " and not so well heeled chess collectors, as well as how to connect with stamp and chess motive fans and the many other enthusiasts of chess culture in the world. But that is a question that would have to be tackled by a group of collaborators, if at all.

For me as a first time participant , it was very interesting to meet several stalwarts of chess collecting, like CCI founder George Dean, Floy ane Bernice Sarisohn,  the Levenes, Gareth and Novello Williams, Michael Mark, Thomas Thomsen, and the  Finesteins.  And longtime correspondents like Guy Lyons, Jens Mükke, Peter Armit, Alan Fersht, Joost van Reeij  and  Jon Crumiller. Many more collectors I correspond with,  could or would not attend.  I also could not help confirming my longstanding impression  that chess collecting - even more than active chess playing -  is a mainly male preserve - there are very few female collectors, although quite a lot of female academics interested in the culture and history of chess.

 I also noted that attending these meetings is not possible for many collectors with interesting collections. I wonder if more informal meetings could be made to work in the ambit of CCI, especially regarding  the national chapters.  I do not know whether former CCI meets enjoyed a larger audience, were better established in the public sphere with newspaper articles, museum shows and public exhibits -  echoes of Vienna and Munich! - but this was a very private affair indeed.  In Cambridge itself, with huge crowds of tourists and thousands of parents with adolescents in their wake milling though the colleges in order to find a study slot for the siblings, the CCI congress passed perfectly unnoticed.