- Miniature Tagua Staunton Set -
The main problem with vegetable ivory is its difficulty to work. You start with a bunch of small nuts which are harder than steel and may or may not be hollow. For creative ways around this problem check out my other Tagua Staunton Set or my interesting French Tagua set. Both of these sets contain pieces made from two or more nuts each. When I was trying my hand at vegetable ivory carving I imagined it would be the perfect medium for the miniature chess set. Obviously the idea is not a novel one. I believe this miniature tagua set comes from modern Ecuador. An even smaller tagua Staunton set was given to Alexandra Kosteniuk a while back. What is vegetable ivory? See my Tagua Staunton Set for this information.
A chess board painted on a tagua nut.
The natural void inside the nut has been smoothed to make a box.
I doubt the chess set was carved from the same nut, that would be cool.
Piece height varies so much I want to say these were hand turned... I can't begin to imagine to precision involved.
Ready for a game?
Better get the tweezers.
