Best Latvian chess pieces reproduction?

What do you mean? The vintage pictures to me look like painted white pieces where the paint is starting to wear off. I got in contact with RoyalChessMall and they said "The pieces being shown are not actually red pieces but rather the effect of patina developing on vintage chess pieces. The patina is usually yellowish brown to orange in colour." 

To me the vintage pictures don't look like they were white originally. Or is this my subtle color blindness kicking in?
The patina is usually yellowish brown to orange in colour.

I meant that those crimson red pieces from CB are really far away from that brown patina of the original ones.

Retromaximum - you didn't label that last photo, the set with the red felt. Who makes that set, I think it's the nicest.

Glad to hear that. That is my handmade set. But it is temporarily sold out. 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/868290993/

I love the Latvian style. I have a set made on the USSR in 1950. The lack of weights doesn't bother me, as it is just a collectors piece for me.

Has anybody an idea where i could find a similar board? It’s very fine.... 

Can anyone comment on the chess set from RoyalChessMall? Thank you

Hi there,

I would please need a hint about an unfelted red/black Latvian repro set. I separately ordered both red and black felt. I think I have two options:

- either felt pieces using the same color (which would result in a more sober result)

- or cross-use red felt under black pieces, and black one under red chessmen (which would be slightly more spectacular, and consistent with the cross-colored finials).

Of course it is a matter of taste, but I would much appreciate some kind advises.

Thks & rgds

Personally,I prefer the contrasting felts....Cross use, as you say. It would be such a striking contrast....Just my own taste.

Good luck either way.

Thank you @magictwanger. I will add pictures once done...

It was a set of this style, but in the simplified version manufactured in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. If the producers wanted the correct version of this style, they would have used one like this from the 1960s.

However, if the producers wanted to be accurate, they would not have used pieces like these at all, because they were not used in tournaments in the high reaches of Soviet Chess. In Moscow of the mid-sixties, they would have used a version of the Grandmaster 3 pieces commonly known as GM Supreme pieces like these.

I must respectfully disagree. 1950s versions of this design--mistakenly called "Latvian" though they were made just about everywhere except Latvia--often came in red and black. Here is one.

One thing we find in some reproductions but which never is found in an original are white (or natural) and red pieces. Apocryphal or not, the story goes that Stalin forbade such homage to the White Army of the civil war. The only red and white Soviet set I can think of is the 1923 porcelain set named the Reds and the Whites, a so-called "propaganda set" that offered a grotesque portrayal of the Whites and their capitalist backers.

I, and a number of other collectors of Soviet sets, have begun to refer to this set as Mordovian because so many of the sets actually were made there. The misnomer "Latvian" derives from Arlindo Vieira's wonderful 2012 video (which I summarized and reviewed here and here) and his accompanying blog Xadrez Memoria, where he noted that he had seen the set used in many events in and around Latvia. There is no evidence that the sets ever were made there. Nor is there any evidence that this design was "Tal's Favorite," a misconception that also derives from a flippant comment in Vieira's video where he asks whether it was Tal's favorite, having seen photos of him playing with it. There is no evidence that the set actually was Tal's favorite, though the claim is often repeated.

It is absolutely true that the set was simplified from the 1950s through the 1980s, and I totally agree that it lost some of its charm in the process. But this set was designed for mass production and use from its very beginning in the 1930s in pursuit of the Soviet authorities' program of Political Chess and its twin goals of raising the cultural level of the masses and defeating the West in this arena of cultural competition. The very first sets of this design were manufactured in Gulags, children's penal colonies in particular. From the start it was a highly simplified design, simple enough for imprisoned children to turn and carve them. Here is one set made in a children's penal colony.

I do agree "Mordovian" is a better name with regards to where the original sets were manufactured from. "Latvian" is the name used by the Ukraine seller for reproductions (and better known by public, so it can make sense to use it - and no harm, as it is a "repro" set).

I performed some searches and found out some maybe worth to share information:

- a post from Douglas Griffin with pictures of such a set from the Moscow chess museum, and part of the displayed text is reproduced (too bad I can't read it from the picture). The text states the manufacturing location is Yavas (a work settlements complex) : https://twitter.com/dgriffinchess/status/1097955743653867522?lang=en (I hope I am allowed to post external links without being banned )

- more information on the Dubravlag camp, including a nice map: https://chronicle-of-current-events.com/2016/11/07/in-the-mordovian-camps-december-1974-33-4/

- should you like to see them, pictures of my current Latvian/Mordovian set are displayed here (middle of the page): http://tibono.free.fr/Pieces_competition_eng.html  . This is a common basic one, but original, and I love it.

Sorry, as a newcomer (my guess for the reason why) I still can't access any advanced editor to better manage the links. Even while editing them they were enabled for click-and-go, but once posted they fell back to dead text. So you would need to use the clipboard to copy them, then paste into a browser tab. Geee...

I have to admit that Chessbazaar (who's gotten flamed for inconsistencies for a while and deservedly so) makes a really nice version of this set.....I have it,so I'm speaking from experience.

Hi,

the CB Latvian repro features a too round, half-circle-like underbelly for the Knight, to my humble opinion. By the way it looks so as well for the other Indian repros (the CB is currently available, I didn't check the other ones).

In this respect, the Retromaximum version is better shaped. Or the Oldset version I now have displayed, close to bottom of this page

I have both the royalchessmall and the Retromaximum sets.  My royalchessmall set is nice and plays well but the peices are too fat, stems are too big in diameter. The knights are too broad from back to front on the body.  Overall less elegant.  The knights are also not as nice in the finish compared to my Retromaximum knights.  The set was cheaper though ($170 RCM vs $300 Retromaximum).  The royalchessmall set is much more weighted 40oz. Retromaximum set weighs 24oz.  I like both sets, but Retromaximum set is flawless and true to the originals. It is my nicest chess set.

I still can’t figure out why people are buying reproductions of this set when the originals are so widely available and actually cost less for a good example… unless its simply because the imports are weighted where the originals were not.