This autographed go board came to Baduk Club from an antique dealer in Tottori, Japan. It comes with a matching autographed fan.
The board was signed by the 9dan professional player Cho Chikun (趙治勲). At the top he has inscribed Abundance (豊汀) in beautiful calligraphy. According to Wikipedia his original name was 豊衍 (ほうえん) and he was renamed at age 1 or 2, so we think this is a clever way for him to point to that.
Cho Chikun is one of the greatest players of our time, with 76 titles in his career. In fact, he won over 60% of his 125 title matches, earning many nicknames including "The 7th Game Demon." He retains the title 25th Honorary Honinbo, on account of having won that tournament more than ten times. The autograph is in excellent shape, and it is accompanied by red stamps of authenticity.
We previously obtained 28 weekly newspaper columns about Cho Chikun, dating from 2020 and 2021 - the series covers interesting episodes in his long career (some as far back as 60 years ago) in his long career, along with illustrative photos. The full scan of these articles is available here (this is a large file, about 50mb).
The board itself is from a slow-growing tree with gorgeous heartwood. It has most of the hallmarks of Katsura, with high density, tight grain pattern, and an orange heartwood that is a consistent color across the entire board. It is a Kiura cut, the most preferred style for a Plain-sawn board. This cutting style shows off the growth rings of the tree on the ends where the players will sit, and the sides of the board will have straight lines. Soft heartwood ripples appear on the underside and the playing surface, giving the impression of wind on water. The grid is the traditional raised-lacquer style. The board is quite heavy, weighing in at about 17 kilograms. It stands 30cm tall with the legs on, and comes with a cloth cover.
A folding fan from he Nihon Kiin is included. This is probably part of their Meijin series so it was likely produced when Cho Chikun held that title from 1980-1984 or 1996-1999. It carries his autograph on the left side, with calligraphy in the center.
Shipping Details:
FedEx International Priority shipping from Japan (to almost everywhere) is already included in the purchase price. This service reduces the shipping time to only 5 business days. Please allow up to 1 week for us to pack your order and complete the Customs forms, then we will email you tracking notifications.
