- Bone Staunton Harrwitz-like Set-
I may get some flack for this page title. I'm only trying to distunguish this from my first bone staunton set. This one is the same size, Kings 2 1/4 inches, and the knights aren't quite as detailed or full of character. The set has a more elegant look to it, however, mostly because it's a much closer 'rip off' of Jaques' design. My other set has its own character. This one looks like a little Jaques set. Of course it's not Jaques, it's just a more accurate (more shameless) copy than you often see. The copy is so exact I can use Alan Ferhst's wonderful refrenence to tell you which Jaques set was copied. One look at the early Jaques knights will tell you this set is an attempt to copy Jaques 1852-55 "Harrwitz" design. That's what my title is about. I'm not endorsing the extention of the already ahistrical and arbitrary Jaques Knight 'codex' outside Jaques sets in general. This is not a rare set and I've heard suggestions identical sets in other collections may be1880-1900 Asian export sets. On the one hand I can see how the additional 'shamelessness' of the copy could be explained that way... ie when you're down the street from the turning firm who's design you're copying you might want to be a little more creative than when you're on a different contintent alltogether. On the other hand this looks far more English than any Asian set I've ever seen, and I've taken some pictures of the screw threads. They sure look English to me. My guess is this is a just a truer than average 19th century English Jaques Staunton copy in bone.
Little bone Staunton set.
A standard chess opening for this standard style chess set.
White Queenside pieces. The top of the Bishop in this picture has been repaired.
Only the red King is original. The white King is a replacement by Alan Dewey. I suppose the man prefers to work with ivory over bone, because the new King (and the top of the Bishop in the previous picture) is made from ivory. Well that's one way to spot a replacement piece! I'll certainly have interesting story to tell if I ever try to sell this set. Complete with a few inked in jabs to resemble bone 'flecking,' it's a good match and doesn't even stand out in these closeup pictures. I do wonder how it will weather vs the rest of the set, though.
Queens.
Bishops.
Knights.
Rooks.
Pawns.
A pawn unscrewed. Does that look like an Asian thread to you?
Royal pieces unscrew into four sections (and I imagine the crosses come off the Kings but I didn't try.) (This picture was taken with my cameras flash. You can see why I prefer the sunlight.)
The usual suspects.