- Faux Amber Set -
This oddball set was sold to me as Russian Amber pre-1970 with marble board. I can't find any information about it. Of course the pieces are not amber, but appear to be some kind of resin or plastic with rocks suspended in them, very pretty in the light. The board is similarly not marble. This does resemble a lot of Russian sets but I think the design of the pieces themselves may be copied from Ćmielów Polish porcelain pieces (seen here in the Haehner chess collection.) Poland was former soviet adjacent and possibly somewhat affected by Russian culture. Copied from Poland or not, the style of these pieces seem quite Russian/Soviet to me. Many antique Russian sets resemble bottles, bowling pins, or babushka dolls which these pieces do look like. One such set was presented to Catherine the Great. I have another, 20th century, from former soviet Kyrgyzstan. Here is one from the Crumiller Collection. It's not a named or well documented style of pre-Staunton chess set, but you can see these old Russian sets have a lot in common. As far as this set is concerned I don't know about pre-1970 either. I have no reason to believe this set couldn't be vintage. It does look old and I haven't seen one like it before. But I have no particular reason to believe the seller's pre-1970 claim either as all of the sellers other claims are wrong or questionable at best. The set is quite an anomalous; you'll see what I mean. King 3"
Well this is embarrassing! The board is not marble but more plastic or resin, and it's labelled... wrong! A while back I read a Chessbase author was concerned there was some kind of conspiracy to photograph chess boards rotated wrong in popular culture. The author was annoyed he seemed to see them rotated wrong more than half the time, that people must be trying to do it wrong or they'd get better results. It was a funny read. This is funnier. I've never seen anything like it. Photographers, videographers I can understand, but makers of chess boards!? Surely someone must have told the maker "white on the right." I'm going to hope most of these are labelled right and I got some kind of rare misprint. Hey! it could happen.
The pieces appear to be some kind of amber colored clear plastic with rocks suspended throughout. The material is not terribly impressive...
... until you get it into the light, when it comes to life.
Dark pieces in shades of honey and red.
Light pieces resemble yellow amber.
Back across the board.
Look close enough and you can see what these pieces are really made from.
Red minor pieces.
The game begins.
A Bishop pin.
The board, too, comes to life in the right light creating wonderful watery reflections.
The pieces, like so many precious gems...
Royals.
Kings.
Queens.
Bishops.
Knights.
Rooks.
Pawns.
Lineup.
Russian? faux amber set.