18 January 2018

Downsizing Chess

At the end of Chess on a Bearskin Rug, the most recent edition of 'Top eBay Chess Items by Price', I noted,

It might be worth looking at 'Top EBTH Chess Items'.

EBTH stands for 'Everything But The House', and specializes in online estate sales. The home page, Ebth.com, suggests,

Let Us Do The Heavy Lifting. Whether you have an entire collection or just a few items, EBTH makes downsizing profitable.

A search on 'chess' returns more than 1700 items, which can be sorted in different ways. The composite image below shows the top items in four important sort orders.

Most Followed (upper left) • 2017-12-27: Vintage Miniature Library Room From The Charles Tebelman Collection; Final Bid $705; 46 Bids • A chess set is behind the chair in the center. The second item in the sort was another miniature.

Bid Amount - high to low (upper right) • 2015-10-05: Frank Duveneck Original "The Chess Players" Oil Painting; Final Bid $5699; 111 Bids • The painting needs cleaning. I tried to brighten it digitally, without much success.

Most Bids (lower left) • 2013-04-02: Antique ivory chess set; Final Bid $3028; 128 Bids • The keyword here isn't 'chess', it's 'ivory'.

Bid Amount - low to high (lower right) • 2017-10-30: Ink Drawing of a Two-Faced Figure; Final Bid $1; 1 Bid • One of dozens of items selling for the lowest price. The description said, 'This unsigned piece depicts a chess piece-like shape with a pair of faces looking in opposite directions, sitting to the center of a gridded ground.'

A Google search told me the company EBTH Inc. was founded 2008. With 1700 items over ten years, we should see a new item related to chess every couple of days.

No comments: