1940 Soviet Set--A Photo Review

Many thanks, MT!

Thanks!!

Many thanks, Igor. I very much appreciate the information. What Soviet sets do you have? Do the tournament sets ever come up for sale anywhere? Where?

Thanks, Mike!

Thanks, Stuz! The stems on the kings, queens, bishops, and pawns are as elegant as I've seen.

1940. Wow, what a great set! Especially when you consider what was going on in the Soviet Union at that time. It sure looks like a survivor of the war, gritty and grimey. Such a great find. I really like those bishops. They have yet to develop that "rocket" look with pointy tops and still resemble the common arsenals of the day: bombs.

Up, I was thinking the same thing. At the time this set was made, the USSR was still allied with Nazi Germany, and Japan had not yet bombed Pearl Harbor. This set has seen alot, and bears the scars.

I wonder how many hundreds of games (if not more) have been played on that set.  Great find.

Me, too, Remi, and by whom.

Where do y'all find these things?

mcostan, check out Etsy. But you gotta be quick! 

I've been looking! I only see the small ones and I wonder about the authenticity of some.

I'm surprized there are more chess sets on etsy than ebay.

I did it!!! I pulled the trigger on a soviet chess set! Dripping with shiny laquer. It's not as old as some of the really cool ones I've seen here but it is good shape and the board has nice contrasting squares. The finals are plastic, I suspect substitutes but that's OK, they look like they match.

I had it down to two sets to choose from, the one had nice bishops but the finals looked like push pins, plus the board squares were close in shade.

I liked the pawns better in that one though. In the end I got the one that looked to be in the best overall shape. I looked at the chess bazaar reproduction and the knights look nothing like russian knights.

I can really play on this one so that's pretty cool. I had an african thornwood set that was impossible to play on, I sold it on ebay. I should have just made more of an effort to sell it around here, tourists love african stuff. Oh well.

I'll post pics when I get it.

Congratulations!

By chance, yesterday ' evening, I'd watch " The talented Mr Ripley ". And I' d saw the exactly same set  in a scène of this movie. Jude Law is lyin' in bathroom and Matt Damon standing face on him; between them : the same 50 ' s soviet chess set !  But this is the link for that scene : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbcSpjIEIMQ

The story be held in Italy in 1958...

Thanks, Didier, but I think that is a set of later vintage. Compare for example, the rooks. Very vertical tower walls in mine, slanted in Jude Law's set. A very nice set in its own right, I just acquired one virtually identical to it. I will post some pictures when it arrives.

Here's that set from the movie, available on Etsy as of 12/1/15.

Thanks, Robert. This set was turned and carved the same year Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, and laid seige to Leningrad and Moscow.The U.S.S. Arizona still sailed this side of the waves. This set survived the Great Patriotic War; the deaths of Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill; the rise and fall of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev; and the terror of the Cuban Missile crisis. It witnessed the construction of the Iron Curtain, the demolition of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Throughout all that, this was one good comrade's set. It's where he or she played thousands of games of chess in the interstices of all that history.