Caveat eBay Digital Documents

Starting with the previous edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price, I switched the long-running series (first post March 2010) from a fortnightly to a monthly schedule. Since that previous post -- Chess Art, Paris 1925 -- appeared at the beginning of May, I had eBay auctions from the entire month of May to choose from. Did that mean I had double the number of interesting items on my short list? Not exactly.

Of course, there are always auctions for collector chess sets or chess computers, but they have to be especially unusual to catch my attention. In a decidedly uninspiring month, the item pictured below grabbed the lion's share of that attention. Titled 'Chess Life and Review - 2 disk DVD collection Chess Software', subtitled 'Brand New', it sold for US $582.04 ('+$19.60 shipping'), Buy-It-Now.

Back in 2012/2013 I downloaded these documents from the web and they have since served as inspiration for many posts on this blog. See, for example, the most recent 'On the Cover', for May 1968; the 2017 series on Early U.S. Ratings; or an overview of the CL/CR digital copies, Shaping Chess History (September 2016). The description of the item pictured above started,

A must have item for any serious chess historian or chess collector! This 2 DVD collection contains digital reproductions of every issue of...

In fact, there is no need for me to copy the description, because you can find it yourself on Amazon.com (where the DVDs currently sell for $43.94) and USCFsales.com ($39.95). Just use the key phrases from the quote I've given. All three descriptions also use the sentence...

Here is your chance to get 42 years worth of Chess Magazines at a cost of less than $1.00 per year!

...which is obviously not true for the eBay item. The seller of that item has more than 100 'Neutral' or 'Negative' feedback comments, some of which mention that an item sold on eBay was shipped using Amazon Prime. Like many once-interesting web ideas, eBay eventually evolved into a giant swamp. The chess DVDs just add to the widespread muck.

By coincidence, while I was preparing the recent post, An 1886 Photoshopped Illustration, where I mentioned that 'I've been downloading old copies of The Chess Journalist (TCJ)', I noticed that the December 2006 issue of the TCJ credited the existence of the scanned CL/CRs to Tim Tobiason. He seems to have been a colorful character in several ways, but this isn't the time or place to repeat stories that can be found elsewhere on the web. It is his misfortune that while the original magazines are protected by copyright, his scans aren't protected by a second copyright because they don't represent creative work.

***

Later: Re that last paragraph...

He seems to have been a colorful character in several ways, but this isn't the time or place to repeat stories that can be found elsewhere on the web.

...the Armchair Warrior found both the time and the place: Tim Tobiason - A Colorful Chess Character (xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com).