Message board topic:

My new chess set came!  Thank you David!  Really nice little pieces, (all there, by the way) and a beautiful wood box.  I very carefully pulled out the instructions to see if I could get a little information on the set.  The paper was fairly old and I had to be really careful opening it.  The instructions were type written on the back of a page of "Eagle Radio" stationery, with a Michigan Avenue address on it which made me think of Chicago, but no dates anywhere.  I looked up "Eagle Radio" and there are Eagle radio stations all over the place, but none in Chicago.  The condition of the paper and the logo on the Eagle Radio side makes me think 1950s, or at least 1960s, but I really don't know.  Can't wait to play a person with it.

I played online last night as "MrFishodor".  It was a long, frustrating, 2 hour long game.  I hate it when games are that hard, but I did win.  Was a disappointing 83% accuracy but the computer had 81%, which was why it was so long and hard, 92 moves!  A friend of mine won his game with only 35% accuracy, which I wouldn't have thought possible.  (He is on a lower level but, winning with 35%?)  I swear I'll get better.  John

I am glad thge set arrived. I hope you get some use or enjoyment from it. No idea on the station and/or Chicago, but you like likely right. Stations get sold and renamed so oftern though....

 

David and the CoolCyberCats

Forever in my heart





Cats Nap. Only Humans Put Them "To Sleep": Sterilize, Don't Euthanize!

 

Whenever I hear "Michigan Avenue", of course I think of Chicago, but I considered looking up the various "Eagle Radio" stations to find a matching address but that would have taken a while.  So, I had a second look at the paper and it said "Michigan Avenue and 18th".  I don't remember an 18th street on Michigan Avenue but when I looked it up, I found one in Detroit.  Then I remembered the telephone number on the paper, Calumet 7320.  It's been a long time since we used names in phone numbers, though they used to be common in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and maybe a bit into the 60s, which further dates the paper.  Then again, Calumet brings me right back to Chicago and Calumet City.  In the same way the infamous "Klondike 5" would be the fake 555 number commonly used in movies, Calumet 7320 would be 22-7320 and again, it's been a long time since we could get away with dialing so few numbers.  That's all the detective work I'm going to do, leaving me to guess the instructions were probably typed in Chicago, but that's just a guess.  Did you by any chance, pick that up when you were in Chicago?

I've already enjoyed checking the set out.  The pieces and the box were really carefully made.  Human players are few and far between in this area.  My friend who died last month was one of the few and I only know 4 or 5 others, so I'm not sure how soon I'll actually get to use it.  On the other hand, with my games on Lichess, I use a real set to replay any games with 50 moves or less to see what I did right or wrong.  (There are often a lot of stupid moves or things I missed in my games.)  My last game took 2 hours to play and was 92 moves so yeah, I'm not replaying that one.  Maybe tonight.  John