A Capablanca Simul

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but the items featured in my series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price are drawn from the auctions in the fortnight preceding each post. That coincides with the time that eBay allows for searches on closed auctions. That means if I post every two weeks, I see all of the most recent auctions; if I leave on vacation and miss a fortnight, those items disappear off my radar.

It's been a month since my previous post Audemars Piguet & Class-parov, so all of the auctions in the two weeks following that post are gone. That might not be a problem, because the most recent fortnight resulted in slim pickings indeed. The only item that interested me was titled 'Original 1931 CAPABLANCA CHESS NY City Photo Signed'. It sold as 'Best Offer' at US $600.

The description said, 'Old 1931 Original Photo of the Cuban Chess World Champion J. Raul Capablanca, in New York City playing with 200 players on real time.' A couple of scans showing the back of the photo revealed Capablanca's signature and the date 22 February 1931. Capablanca is standing directly in front of the second board from the left.

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If I hadn't missed the two weeks near the beginning of June, I might have used an eBay auction mentioned at the end of Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (62) on Chessbase.com. The auction was titled 'Chess program signed by many world champions and others; Russia v the World chess match (Moscow, 2002)', received 40 bids from 15 different bidders, and sold for $1,675.01. That Winter article on Chessbase.com also showed a better scan of the signature page from the book I featured in Wereldkampioenschap Schaken 1948.