Chess Items.

Otago Witness, Issue 2527, 20 August 1902, Page 58

Chess Items.

A chess match by correspondence between the Timaru and Otago Chess Club 9is now in progress. Mr David Heimann, ex-chess champion ot New South Wales, died recently in Sydney. The British representatives at the German Chess Association's International Tourney, at Hauover (according to latest Home advices), •were to be Messrs Pillsbury, Blackbume, Atkins, Mason, Gunfberg, and Teichmann. The "Fountaine" Chess MS.— well-known by name and description to a few chess antiquarians of this and past times, but seldom seen, being private property — was sold by auction lately by Messrs Sotheby, of the Strand, end realised JESOO, the highest price ever reached for a MS. The purchaser was Mr Quariteh^ the well-known collector of old books, chiefly for business purposes. The MS. was in the "Fountaine" library of Narford Hall, Norfolk, part of a collection got together during the reigns of Queen Anne and the first two Georges. It is written on vellum, in old Norman French. There are 182 leaves, quarto eize, and on these are a number of diagramed chess problems, the pieces being in gold and red. The solutions are given, and a few remarks. The pioblems, of coarse, are of "old chess." Most of them, if not all, were composed on the continent, or farther east. Some arc of Arabic origin, and are — at least in idea — upwards of 700 years old.