A New Original Staunton Design?!

Quad, this design actually predates the Staunton design of 1849. It was purportedly design by Lord Hay circa 1840. Known as the Northern Upright or Edinborough, the sets were manufactured by several different makers, hence the slight variations of in design.

The problem with these, and many other high profile sets, was a tendency to tip over the pieces.

Here's a picture of an original antique set.

Additional info available from the HoS website:

https://chessantiques.com/product/northern-upright-tournament-chessmen/

Huh? I'm well aware of the Northern Upright design. That's basically a plainer variant of the St. George design. The chess set I linked to isn't of that pattern; it's a Staunton, just with thinner stems, although I'll admit the Knight, having a small head atop a long stem, does resemble the Northern Upright or other older designs. But the King and Queen, for example, are clearly of the Staunton pattern.

Stauntons with thin stems were very common in plastic toy chess sets. Here is one of the better examples of such a style:

https://chessantiques.com/product/kingsway-varsity-plastic-chessmen-2/

Quad, I was referring to the link you posted for this set, which is kind of a mashup of the Northern and Staunton designs.

Yes, I knew you were referring to my link to that set. Which is why I mentioned that perhaps the design of the Knights could have been considered to be reminiscent of older designs like the Northern Upright. Otherwise, in my opinion, this set is just another independent Staunton design with thinner stems, like many others - like the Kingsway Plastics set (Varsity or Staunton, not the Florentine), like Transogram's plastic chess pieces, like E. S. Lowe's Tournament chess pieces (this seems to be the style still available from Pressman; not their better known Renaissance pieces like the ANRI, or the Gothc by Ganine), like the Drueke American style, and so on.

On the other hand, Milton Bradley made their hollow plastic pieces a lot like the classic Staunton Chessmen, and Drueke also made their Player's Choice set, which again was a lot like the original Staunton, but with a change to the decorative fringes.

@loubalch

That is a very interesting take on the pawns.

I have seem some reproductions have a pointy pawn top. Looks very bad and difficult to play with.

However, a taller pawn seems an idea to think about.