Great set!
Another Jura dogface
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Jul 7, 2023
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#4
Always lovely, those older Jura doggies. Did you know there are also sets in existence with slender stems? Pretty rare, those!
From https://guylyonschess.co.uk/project/slender-french-chess-sets/
And one with the more sophisticated Lardy type knight, From https://www.scribd.com/document/62620988/USA-Chess-Sets
Dogface sets are very abundant where I live but it took me a while before I obtained one myself.
It arrived yesterday in a tin container, so this doesn't give me any information on the possible provenance (although it's clearly a Jura set) or the age of the set:
The set itself is 3.15" tall with a 1.3" king base. The pieces have a very fine lacquer or varnish applied to them.
Reason for buying the set is because it's a bit different from the dogface sets you usually see pop up around here. Normally you'd expect the typical Lardy-like pieces but this is not the case here.
King, queen and bishops have broad, hourglass shaped (concave) stems with the king/queen sporting low (recessed-like) and broad crowns. The kings finial is also different to what I'm used to seeing.
In contrast to the rest of the pieces, I must say that the knights didn't age too well. The carving is rather crude (I've seen nicer ones in the more common dogface sets) and only remnants of lacquer remain.
Looking around on the web I've found one etsy listing from restoration retro with a similar set and there it is dated around 1920-1930, although I don't know if that's correct.
Dogface sets, like them or hate them: I'm on the first team and quite happy with this one!