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Chess and Playing Cards: The Chess, Divination and Card Collections
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Free material for Culin's 1898 catalogue: three chessboards at playing size to print, the nine forms of chess compared on one sheet, the register that keeps his objects apart from his argument, and every entry listed with his own numbers — the index the original never printed.
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Three chessboards to print and play on
PDF · US Letter · 3 pages
The Chinese board with its River and its two palaces, the Korean board that rules the files straight across that River so the River is ignored, and the Japanese board of nine squares each way. Drawn at playing size from Culin's own counts. Coins or draughts will do for men.
Open PDF261 KBNine forms of chess, compared
PDF · US Letter · 1 page
Chaturanga, the Maldive, Malay and Burmese games, the European, the Chinese, the Korean and the Japanese — with the board, the men, and the single structural decision that tells each of them apart. Drawn entirely from Culin's own descriptions.
Open PDF65 KBThe Register of Object and Argument
PDF · US Letter · 2 pages
For each part of the catalogue: what the objects are, what Culin says they show, what the claim actually rests on, and how to read the difference. The instrument this edition is built around.
Open PDF68 KBEvery entry in the catalogue
PDF · US Letter · 2 pages
All seventy-six entries of this volume with Culin's own numbers and the page of the 1898 Report each stands on. The 1898 volume printed a table of contents and no index; this is the finding aid it never had.
Open PDF68 KB
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About this material
Stewart Culin died in 1929 and the 1898 United States imprint puts this text in the public domain there on its own. None of the fifty plates or the text figures is reproduced: several plates are Culin's own reuse of the artwork made for Korean Games by Ki San — the Korean painter Kim Chun-gŭn — for whom no death year is recorded, and the museum photographs and text figures are unattributed. Every board on these sheets was drawn for this edition from the descriptions in Culin's text.