Chessville Reviews - American Chess Bulletin June-December 1904, Volume 1 - Edited and Published by Hartwig Cassel & Hermann Helms - Reprinted by Moravian Chess

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American Chess Bulletin
June-December 1904, Volume 1
Reviewed by Russell Miller

A monthly record of the News and Games of National and International Importance

Edited and published by Hartwig Cassel and Hermann Helms

Reprint by: Moravian Chess

148 Pages, hardcover

My interest in chess history caused me to purchase this book. American Chess Bulletin got started because of the International Masters’ Tournament held at Cambridge Springs, PA in 1904 and won by Frank J. Marshall. Volume 1 number 1 is 40 pages and is all about the Cambridge Springs event.

The book starts with Marshall’s games, with a few notes by him to each of his 15 games. The notation is of course the old kind, English Descriptive (R-Q7 QR-Kt, PxP, K-R). The full 120 games played in the Cambridge Springs tournament appear in this first issue of the magazine that was to run until 1963. The rounds are not in order in the copy I have but who knows if the original was in the proper order either. The only games with notes in issue No. 1 are Marshall’s.

They printed a one page synopsis of Marshall’s career plus a lot of information about people who help make the Cambridge Spring event happen. Even the names and towns of the people who brought the sets, boards and clocks used in the tournament are available.

The whole book is 148 pages long and the reproduction is not the best. Some of the diagrams are of a small size and are unreadable as is some of the print.

Quite interesting that there are ads for a steamship line, a hotel, a New York City café, a cigar company plus American Chess Company selling chessmen and boards plus a few chess books: Morgan’s Chess Digest, Cook’s Compendium and Happern’s Symposium in one ad.

The contents of volume I listed by the following headings will give one a lot of what is in the volume:

Scores of Games (from Cambridge Springs, Chicago vs Twin Cities, City of London CC, Coburg, Hastings, Manhattan vs Franklin, Rice Gambit, St. Louis Chess Congress, Sylvan Beach, Western Chess Tourney)
Tabulated Tourney Scores, Portraits and Groups (some of these are clear some are not)
Matches and Tournaments, Miscellaneous (such as Chess Club Directory [nothing in Washington or Oregon listed]
a poem
Chess in San Francisco
obituary [only one and no names given or any information for that matter other than being the fathers of Marshall and Showalter]
publishers announcements on 6 pages and much more
Problems and End Games

Would be nice to purchase more volumes but they are not cheap and also come from Europe as no dealer in USA stocks them that I have found so far.

Get your chess history where the writers of today get it - from old magazines such as this and old newspaper columns which are staring so show up online such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for 1841-1902.

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