autumn beauty...
CCI meeting Trier - German section - November 6 to 8
Trier on the Moselle was the town chosen for this years annual meeting of the German section of CCI. For chess players, it is always easy to find a reason - in the case of Trier, this is Germany's oldest town, It boasts one of Germany's oldest Chess Clubs (Trier SG of 1877), Karl Marx, a chess player of some importance, was born here, and it is close to Luxemburg - well, more on this facet later.
Trier is dotted with all kinds of reminders that in the late days of the Roman Empire it was the most important city in the North, controlling the provinces bordering on the ever unruly Germania proper. In later days, it enjoyed some prominence as seat of the Palatinate duke archbishop, one of the electors of the German emperor - a major catholic capital, until the Napoleonic wars did away both with the crumbling old German empire , and with the worldly rule of archbishops. Trier, especially in the mild autumn weather we were benefited with, is a lovely town, with ruins of Imperial baths, an authentic Roman basilica converted to an evangelic church, an amphitheater, the "Porta Nigra" which is a well preserved Roman city gate, roman villas in the countryside, and a Museum richly endowed with finds statues, coins, artwork, tools, craft items and all kinds of remains of Roman days.
The birth house of Karl Marx is possibly not the target of reverent pilgrims it used to be, but still a very interesting spot to visit - it is maintained by the Social Democratic Party, in conformity with Willy Brandt's saying that "we shall not forget our origins" - during the prewar years it was acquired in a hot capitalistic bidding auction against the then Communist Party! Apart from that , the town is overshadowed by an imposing Romanic cathedral, there are several other medieval churches, a toy Museum, a City Museum, the Landesmuseum with roman finds, besides the birth house also the family house of Karl Marx, and a beautifully preserved old town center with plenty of Fachwerk (timber frame) houses to boot. No wonder, the city is teeming with visitors even in these off season days.
Roll count
46 collectors - that is, collecting husbands and accompanying wives! - made it to the former palatinal capital - which is a lot less than in Munich 2013, and in Weimar 2014 (see below)! While most participants originated from Germany, Tom & Luanne Gallegos came all the way from Denver, Co., Patrice Plain and wife from France, Hans Overholt and J.P. Goerens arrived from Holland, Gero Frank from Switzerland, CCI President Mike Wiltshire from Great Britain, and N. Lanier from Portugal - as now is teh rule, several members of the Ken Whyld Association participated in the meet. Strategically housed in an hotel 200 yards from the main square with churches, cafés, shops and the cathedral looming, participants were as usually treated to a highly efficient and minutely organized schedule, masterminded by Wolfgang Angerstein and Thomas Thomsen.
On Friday night the meeting started off most agreeably with a self-service dinner, and then continued into a long drawn evening in the local bar, with CCI president Mike Wiltshire challenging successive members to hard fought games of chess.
Intriguing lectures
On Saturday morning the congress got down to business - with CCI Germany President Wolfgang Angerstein and former President Thomas Thomsen welcoming the collectors. A minute of silence was observed in memory of chess historian and CCI stalwart Isaac Linder, who passed away recently at age 95. Members were treated to photocopies of the articles which GM Helmut Pfleger - also present - had published on CCI and the forthcoming meeting in the leading weekly "Die Zeit".
A pervading worry of CCI - not just in Germany, by the way - is the lack of newcomers joining the group, coupled to the fact that most CCI members are over 50, if not 60 years of age. To find some remedy, Franz Josef Lang made an impassioned plea to participants to join in the discussion, and send him suggestions, ideas, contributions how to try and find new members and stop the process of ages attritition CCI is affected by. An ad-hoc committee was formed with Lang as coordinator, in order to sift ideas and come up with a a strategy to enlarge membership numbers.
Patrice Plain, CCI President France, reminded everybody via a short speech that in May 2016 the World CCI Congress will take place in Paris, preparations were well on their way, and a document map was ready to celebrate the event next year.
Following this, Marcus Pilz provided some new findings in his ongoing project on Fatimid cristal carvings. Pilz has now identified different levels of craftmanship in the pieces examined, and taking into account the large occurrence of medieval cristal chess men in Spain now tends to consider the possibility some of them might have been carved in Omaiyyad Spain - in Al-Andalous.
Michael Negele of the Ken Whyld Association (KWA) provided a highly entertaining lecture, including a quiz , about Trier chess lore under the inspiring motto "The Mess with Marx"! Among other tidbits , we learned that Marx contrary to established Soviet dogma was an impetuous and somewhat weak player, got very excited in playing, and happened to be a very bad loser. And did we know that at one time the worlds strongest chess player lived in Trier? The Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand and der Lasa made a career mainly in Prussian government service and spent the years 1843 to 1845 in this city, then part of the Prussian state - and even attempted to organize an international chess tournament here. This did not come about and the first major international tournament came to pass in 1851 in London, organized by Howard Staunton. But - in 1853 von der Lasa beat Staunton in Brussels in the course of an informal match!
Harry Schaack, editor of the chess magazine dedicated to chess culture and history "Karl", attempted to quantify the number of chess collectors worldwide, adding the members of CCI and KWA - and came up with 426 persons. This seems very modest considering the huge number of people who are interested in chess all over the world, and the wild bidding that occurs wherever chess items are auctioned off. Schaack did point out the strong concentration of collectors in Europe and Northern America.
Jens-Frieder Mükke in succession introduced the general outline of the new CCI Germany website that will be operative by the years end,with JF as webmaster. This should be a great incitement to the anglo-saxon sections - both Great Britain and the USA - to do the same and come up with a web or two of their own.. or even better an International CCI website. The Italian section runs a highly interesting website in which most of the members collaborate in one way or the other, and the french CCI web site is quite competent and well designed as well (see Links). Without a website, there is nothing to show chess fans what CCI is all about. I dare say several CCI USA members could produce a useable website in very short time, Jon Crumiller could do it probably in ten minutes if he was asked nicely!
After a short coffee break, Michael Wiltshire presented a lovely silver-gilt travel chess set he had by chance acquired in a recent stop in Vienna , and which bears the inscription "Pressburg 1830". It did not take Mike long to remember that Ferdinand of Habsburg was crowned king of Hungary in Pressburg in 1930, and this engaging trifle must have been a wedding present possibly to the new king and later emperor? Mike's suspicion - given the physical impediments of the new sovereign, is that this set might have well served to while away those long, long hours of tedium for the slightly incapacitated sovereign and his wife and cousin Maria Anna of Habsburg....it is a Biedermeier style set, with the typical batons or feathers jutting forth from the bishops tops - a real Habsburg chess set!
Barbara Holländer presented a deeply researched paper on a very odd club of quadruple chess existing in the distant Northeast corner of Germany in mid 19th century. The club consisted of four members, all old friends from revolutionary student days, it drew up formalized rules which were published as booklets, and accepted no new members! The inspirator, Heinrich Riemann, was an evangelical pastor, had gained fame by holding the opening speech in the student "Wartburg" feast, an important event in course of the post-napoleonic convulsions in Germany, and had even been jailed for sedition in his youth!
Trier is dotted with all kinds of reminders that in the late days of the Roman Empire it was the most important city in the North, controlling the provinces bordering on the ever unruly Germania proper. In later days, it enjoyed some prominence as seat of the Palatinate duke archbishop, one of the electors of the German emperor - a major catholic capital, until the Napoleonic wars did away both with the crumbling old German empire , and with the worldly rule of archbishops. Trier, especially in the mild autumn weather we were benefited with, is a lovely town, with ruins of Imperial baths, an authentic Roman basilica converted to an evangelic church, an amphitheater, the "Porta Nigra" which is a well preserved Roman city gate, roman villas in the countryside, and a Museum richly endowed with finds statues, coins, artwork, tools, craft items and all kinds of remains of Roman days.
The birth house of Karl Marx is possibly not the target of reverent pilgrims it used to be, but still a very interesting spot to visit - it is maintained by the Social Democratic Party, in conformity with Willy Brandt's saying that "we shall not forget our origins" - during the prewar years it was acquired in a hot capitalistic bidding auction against the then Communist Party! Apart from that , the town is overshadowed by an imposing Romanic cathedral, there are several other medieval churches, a toy Museum, a City Museum, the Landesmuseum with roman finds, besides the birth house also the family house of Karl Marx, and a beautifully preserved old town center with plenty of Fachwerk (timber frame) houses to boot. No wonder, the city is teeming with visitors even in these off season days.
Roll count
46 collectors - that is, collecting husbands and accompanying wives! - made it to the former palatinal capital - which is a lot less than in Munich 2013, and in Weimar 2014 (see below)! While most participants originated from Germany, Tom & Luanne Gallegos came all the way from Denver, Co., Patrice Plain and wife from France, Hans Overholt and J.P. Goerens arrived from Holland, Gero Frank from Switzerland, CCI President Mike Wiltshire from Great Britain, and N. Lanier from Portugal - as now is teh rule, several members of the Ken Whyld Association participated in the meet. Strategically housed in an hotel 200 yards from the main square with churches, cafés, shops and the cathedral looming, participants were as usually treated to a highly efficient and minutely organized schedule, masterminded by Wolfgang Angerstein and Thomas Thomsen.
On Friday night the meeting started off most agreeably with a self-service dinner, and then continued into a long drawn evening in the local bar, with CCI president Mike Wiltshire challenging successive members to hard fought games of chess.
Intriguing lectures
On Saturday morning the congress got down to business - with CCI Germany President Wolfgang Angerstein and former President Thomas Thomsen welcoming the collectors. A minute of silence was observed in memory of chess historian and CCI stalwart Isaac Linder, who passed away recently at age 95. Members were treated to photocopies of the articles which GM Helmut Pfleger - also present - had published on CCI and the forthcoming meeting in the leading weekly "Die Zeit".
A pervading worry of CCI - not just in Germany, by the way - is the lack of newcomers joining the group, coupled to the fact that most CCI members are over 50, if not 60 years of age. To find some remedy, Franz Josef Lang made an impassioned plea to participants to join in the discussion, and send him suggestions, ideas, contributions how to try and find new members and stop the process of ages attritition CCI is affected by. An ad-hoc committee was formed with Lang as coordinator, in order to sift ideas and come up with a a strategy to enlarge membership numbers.
Patrice Plain, CCI President France, reminded everybody via a short speech that in May 2016 the World CCI Congress will take place in Paris, preparations were well on their way, and a document map was ready to celebrate the event next year.
Following this, Marcus Pilz provided some new findings in his ongoing project on Fatimid cristal carvings. Pilz has now identified different levels of craftmanship in the pieces examined, and taking into account the large occurrence of medieval cristal chess men in Spain now tends to consider the possibility some of them might have been carved in Omaiyyad Spain - in Al-Andalous.
Michael Negele of the Ken Whyld Association (KWA) provided a highly entertaining lecture, including a quiz , about Trier chess lore under the inspiring motto "The Mess with Marx"! Among other tidbits , we learned that Marx contrary to established Soviet dogma was an impetuous and somewhat weak player, got very excited in playing, and happened to be a very bad loser. And did we know that at one time the worlds strongest chess player lived in Trier? The Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand and der Lasa made a career mainly in Prussian government service and spent the years 1843 to 1845 in this city, then part of the Prussian state - and even attempted to organize an international chess tournament here. This did not come about and the first major international tournament came to pass in 1851 in London, organized by Howard Staunton. But - in 1853 von der Lasa beat Staunton in Brussels in the course of an informal match!
Harry Schaack, editor of the chess magazine dedicated to chess culture and history "Karl", attempted to quantify the number of chess collectors worldwide, adding the members of CCI and KWA - and came up with 426 persons. This seems very modest considering the huge number of people who are interested in chess all over the world, and the wild bidding that occurs wherever chess items are auctioned off. Schaack did point out the strong concentration of collectors in Europe and Northern America.
Jens-Frieder Mükke in succession introduced the general outline of the new CCI Germany website that will be operative by the years end,with JF as webmaster. This should be a great incitement to the anglo-saxon sections - both Great Britain and the USA - to do the same and come up with a web or two of their own.. or even better an International CCI website. The Italian section runs a highly interesting website in which most of the members collaborate in one way or the other, and the french CCI web site is quite competent and well designed as well (see Links). Without a website, there is nothing to show chess fans what CCI is all about. I dare say several CCI USA members could produce a useable website in very short time, Jon Crumiller could do it probably in ten minutes if he was asked nicely!
After a short coffee break, Michael Wiltshire presented a lovely silver-gilt travel chess set he had by chance acquired in a recent stop in Vienna , and which bears the inscription "Pressburg 1830". It did not take Mike long to remember that Ferdinand of Habsburg was crowned king of Hungary in Pressburg in 1930, and this engaging trifle must have been a wedding present possibly to the new king and later emperor? Mike's suspicion - given the physical impediments of the new sovereign, is that this set might have well served to while away those long, long hours of tedium for the slightly incapacitated sovereign and his wife and cousin Maria Anna of Habsburg....it is a Biedermeier style set, with the typical batons or feathers jutting forth from the bishops tops - a real Habsburg chess set!
Barbara Holländer presented a deeply researched paper on a very odd club of quadruple chess existing in the distant Northeast corner of Germany in mid 19th century. The club consisted of four members, all old friends from revolutionary student days, it drew up formalized rules which were published as booklets, and accepted no new members! The inspirator, Heinrich Riemann, was an evangelical pastor, had gained fame by holding the opening speech in the student "Wartburg" feast, an important event in course of the post-napoleonic convulsions in Germany, and had even been jailed for sedition in his youth!
Luxemburg Largesse
Lunch in the hotel was a running affair - a self service buffet - because a bus was on the way to take us to what turned out to be the absolute highlight of the whole meeting - a visit to CCI member Reinhard Egert's home to see his chess collection. This was a a very kind gesture of Reinhard's and his wife - after all, it is no mean affair to have 40 odd punters trooping trough Your living room, kitchen hallway etc. The Egert home is a normal family home, Reinhard's daughter Susanne and an outside friend were around to help with the drinks and snacks, while the collectors were admiring the plethora of incomparable chess sets, the well lighted vitrines, snapping photos and discussing details. The Egert collection is extremely rich in first class showpieces from all parts - old German, double-headed knights, Vizagapatnam, Berhampore, Rajasthan, Edel sets, Canton, Paris carvings - most of the sets in ivory or composed of several materials. To top it off, there are piles of "lesser" sets arranged in large drawer cupboards and along the walls....An hour flew by like an instant - it was only the the necessity of our tight schedule that started us moving towards the exit. And at the end of it - we all hope nothing was missing after everybody had left....
Lunch in the hotel was a running affair - a self service buffet - because a bus was on the way to take us to what turned out to be the absolute highlight of the whole meeting - a visit to CCI member Reinhard Egert's home to see his chess collection. This was a a very kind gesture of Reinhard's and his wife - after all, it is no mean affair to have 40 odd punters trooping trough Your living room, kitchen hallway etc. The Egert home is a normal family home, Reinhard's daughter Susanne and an outside friend were around to help with the drinks and snacks, while the collectors were admiring the plethora of incomparable chess sets, the well lighted vitrines, snapping photos and discussing details. The Egert collection is extremely rich in first class showpieces from all parts - old German, double-headed knights, Vizagapatnam, Berhampore, Rajasthan, Edel sets, Canton, Paris carvings - most of the sets in ivory or composed of several materials. To top it off, there are piles of "lesser" sets arranged in large drawer cupboards and along the walls....An hour flew by like an instant - it was only the the necessity of our tight schedule that started us moving towards the exit. And at the end of it - we all hope nothing was missing after everybody had left....
Thank You , Reinhard!
Bearish market
After the return to Trier, there was no time to dawdle, as we had to hurry off to the room set apart for the chess exchange market. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the assembled CCI collectors bothered to visit or even bring some of their treasures to the exchange. A rather large Burma set was sold - and dropped right away, causing damage. For the rest , some modest books, magazines, postcards and other trivia changed owners, and the affair was quickly rolled up. It seems collectors like to enlarge their collections, but are loth to prune or downsize their holdings, even when aware of their lesser significance. There must be something about trophies hunted are not given away... It might be possible to improve on this state of things in some manner, but I certainly am not aware how....
For dinner the collecting group removed to a cellar restaurant under the main square and close to the cathedral, adorned with glass cases housing a manifold assembly of roman pottery, remains of the strong roman past of the city. A delectable surrounding , very apt to discuss the Luxemburg trip and the day's lectures, with some of the lecturers mixed into the crowd. The evening ended, predictably, in the hotel bar, which had been taken over by the personnel of a large company , and was reverberating and gyrating to pumped-up techno muzak. Still, a hard core of collectors managed to outlast this noise, and take over the chess board again, to play on into the small hours of the morning, glasses brimming and clanging...we even made friends with the techno crowd!
After the return to Trier, there was no time to dawdle, as we had to hurry off to the room set apart for the chess exchange market. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the assembled CCI collectors bothered to visit or even bring some of their treasures to the exchange. A rather large Burma set was sold - and dropped right away, causing damage. For the rest , some modest books, magazines, postcards and other trivia changed owners, and the affair was quickly rolled up. It seems collectors like to enlarge their collections, but are loth to prune or downsize their holdings, even when aware of their lesser significance. There must be something about trophies hunted are not given away... It might be possible to improve on this state of things in some manner, but I certainly am not aware how....
For dinner the collecting group removed to a cellar restaurant under the main square and close to the cathedral, adorned with glass cases housing a manifold assembly of roman pottery, remains of the strong roman past of the city. A delectable surrounding , very apt to discuss the Luxemburg trip and the day's lectures, with some of the lecturers mixed into the crowd. The evening ended, predictably, in the hotel bar, which had been taken over by the personnel of a large company , and was reverberating and gyrating to pumped-up techno muzak. Still, a hard core of collectors managed to outlast this noise, and take over the chess board again, to play on into the small hours of the morning, glasses brimming and clanging...we even made friends with the techno crowd!
Every end is a beginning...
Sunday morning, most collectors opted to go out on a guided town stroll, to see the Cathedral, the Palatine palace and the Roman ruins. Others had to make their farewell in the hall, for various reasons, some went off to see one of the Museums - still others went off on a tangent to enjoy the romantic foggy morning by the banks of the Moselle...
The remaining fraction of the group had a pleasant light lunch in the Hotel, before dispersing rapidly in all directions. Travellers from farther off - the Wiltshires and Yours truly - still had a stroll through lesser known quarters, past the Karl Marx house, and then proceeded to beat our personal records in cake-stuffing! Such is the way the cookie crumbles....
(C) The Chess Museum 2015
Sunday morning, most collectors opted to go out on a guided town stroll, to see the Cathedral, the Palatine palace and the Roman ruins. Others had to make their farewell in the hall, for various reasons, some went off to see one of the Museums - still others went off on a tangent to enjoy the romantic foggy morning by the banks of the Moselle...
The remaining fraction of the group had a pleasant light lunch in the Hotel, before dispersing rapidly in all directions. Travellers from farther off - the Wiltshires and Yours truly - still had a stroll through lesser known quarters, past the Karl Marx house, and then proceeded to beat our personal records in cake-stuffing! Such is the way the cookie crumbles....
(C) The Chess Museum 2015
early barge loading crane by the river
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cathedral in the haze
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Auf Wiedersehen , Trier - a bientot en Paris, les gars!
Tom Gallegos
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Ines Franz, always well disposed
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Wolfgang Angerstein
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the way is the aim....
