Apr 12, 2010 - Sale 2210
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Sale 2210 - Lot 182

Price Realized: $ 2,880
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
EARLY HEBREW CHESS MANUAL (CHESS.) Elijah Mizrahi. Sefer melekhet ha-mispar [with Uri Tsvi Rubinstein, Limudei ha-iyuni ve-ha-ma`asi be-darkhei ha-sehok ha-nikra shakhshpil]. Woodcut diagram of chess board on page 32 in second part. [1], 38, 9 leaves; [3], 45 pages. 2 parts in one volume. Small 8vo, contemporary paste-paper boards, spine and cover edges quite worn; old institutional stamp on general title, stain in lower inner corner of last several leaves. Lemberg [i. e., Lviv, Ukraine]: Rubinstein'sche Buchdruckerei, 1809
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Additional Details

first edition of an introduction to chess in Hebrew and transliterated German published as the appendix to a scarce abridgment of Elijah Mizrahi's mathematical treatise Sefer ha-Mispar and possibly also issued separately. This is apparently the first Hebrew text on chess to employ algebraic notation, the system for recording moves devised by the chess master Philippe Stamma (circa 1705-55). EJ V, 401 (reproducing the diagram); Steinschneider, Schach bei den Juden 12 (in Linde, Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels, pages 183-84); Vinograd, Lemberg 301 and 299. OCLC locates copies at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College, as well as the Royal Library in The Hague (chess portion only) and Göttingen University (apparently lacking the chess portion); IUL locates copies at the Jewish National Library and Bar Ilan University.