These boards were used by chess master George Koltanowski in his chess tournaments in which he played blindfolded against dozens of people at a time.
The mentor of this phenomenon was Pierre Guillaume, a former member of Socialisme ou Barbarie and Pouvoir Ouvriere who in 1965 had founded the bookshop La Vieille Taupe.
The fictional character Serena van der Woodsen in Cecily von Ziegesar's 2011 novel Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer wear's taupe-colored Sermoneta kidskin gloves when she sneaks into the home of her friend Nate Archibald.