Medieval Chess Piece Sells For Unbelievable Price
A medieval chess piece, part of the historic collection known as the Lewis Chessmen, was sold at auction today (July 2) for £735,000 (more than U.S. $928,000 or 821,000 euros). The piece had been bought in 1964 for only £5 by an antiques dealer.
The piece, made from walrus ivory, had been kept by the buyer’s family after his death without realizing its value before taking it to Sotheby’s in London to assess its worth. The new owner of the piece has not yet been identified.
To read more about the discovery and importance of this piece, read my earlier post about this topic.
Whom do you think the buyer is?
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.
He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.