Oldest Surviving Book on Chess to Auction with £100,000 Estimate

A rare copy of the oldest surviving book about playing chess leads a major sale of one of the finest collections of chess books and memorabilia at Sotheby's this week.

Luis Ramírez de Lucena's Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Salamanca: Leonardo Hutz and Lope Sanz, 1497) was written shortly after the modern rules of chess had emerged in the 1470s making the queen far more powerful, and Lucena describes both old and new versions in his book which also includes Repetición de Amores, an anti-feminist poem. 

Only 18 copies appear to have survivied and Sotheby's describe this as considered to be "the most splendid of the surviving originals". It has an estimate of £70,000-£100,000.

It comes from the collection of German chess Grandmaster Lothar Schmid (1928-2013) who also ran the Karl May Verlag Press which published the extremely popular German novelist Karl May's adventure novels. Schmid was also the chief arbiter at the controversial 1972 World Chess Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky at Reykjavík, and the sale features items relating to these matches. 

Schmid's collection of chess books and paraphernalia was perhaps the largest private chess library in the world, and is being sold by his children.

Other highlights of the April 2 auction include:

• a group of 10 rare volumes on the 18th century Mechanical Turk chess-playing automaton early 'AGI' scam (estimate: £15,000-£20,000)
• Thomas Middleton's very rare satirical drama A Game at Chesse (1628) from the library of leading 19th century German chess player Baron von der Lasa and including his armorial bookplate (estimate: £10,000-£15,000)
• 1972 Chess World Championship scoresheets for round 17, August 22-23 in Iceland, signed by Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer (estimate: £5,000-£7,000)
• a first edition of 13th century Dominican monk Jacobus de Cessolis's bestselling Libro di Givocho di Scacchi (Florence, 1493) written as an allegory of the human condition, featuring 13 fine woodcuts (estimate: £50,000-£70,000)
• a first edition of American Founding Father and keen chess player Benjamin Franklin's Chess Made Easy (London: printed for H.D. Symonds, 1797) (estimate: £3,000-£5,000)
• The ancient game of chess, an autograph manuscript in English in a notebook by German chess player and world champion Emanuel Lasker, thought to be an early draft of A Course of Instruction in ye ancient game of chesse which was serialised in Lasker’s Magazine (estimate: £3,000-£5,000)