From Russia with Love Part 2 Vintage Soviet Russian Chess Set

Here's the sequel to Cgrau's Soviet Set review. http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/from-russia-with-love?page=2
Our sets are almost identical.   Kings measure 4 1/4" in height. Pieces weighted. The white Knights are all wood, black Knights have wood base with plastic heads.  I really like the Knights and the mitred Bishops. The Rooks are very nice too. 
 

More pics

Gorgeous photos Mike! I really love this set. Your knights are particularly good specimens. I actually have two of these sets, the one I've posted is the better specimen, but the white king was a mismatched replacement from a different set. Now I have a replacement from the same style set. My black knights are in better shape than my white ones. Your white knights are better formed. The rooks on my nicer set are somewhat stouter than yours or those in my second set. I really like them. I also think the queen in this set is extraordinarly beautiful. And of course you tastefully pair them with your Jantar clocks. I love the little chess boards on the clockfaces.

Thanks Chuck, I love this set too. Its one of the  favorites in my Soviet collection.  I appreciate your observations on the sets.  What  baffles me is why the black Knights were made with plastic heads and not the natural wood knights. Do the black knights in both your sets have plastic heads? How about a pic of your knights from both sets? I do like your rooks in your set better than mine. 

I am baffled by the different composition of the knights' heads too! Both of my sets have wood heads for the white knights and plastic ones for the the black knights. Some shots of the second follow. Here are the paradoxical knights, wooden head white and plastic head black.

The rooks from my second set, very much in the style of yours...

The kings. Note the difference in the diameter of the kings' crowns. Yours are even more slender. I have taken the finial off the black king, painted it black, inserted it into the white king, and used the recrowned monarch to replace the mismatched white king in my first set...

The queens. Beautiful ladies, but not nearly so as yours or those of my first set. The crenellations on your coronets are more finely carved...

I will repair the finial on the black queen, then move them both over to my first set, which I'll use to play with along with the Jantar clock I have on the way from Russia. I'll have the only four-queen Grossmeister set that I know of.

The bishops. I, too, love the miter cuts. So rare on Soviet sets! Clerically counterrevolutionary, I must say, especially when combined with the cross-like finials on the kings. The stems on yours are much thinner and more elegant, the miters more bulbous, and the collars more finely turned...

The pawns, who make up in numbers what they lack in social status...

The relative proportions of the opposing armies...

I find the photos I have of the first set and post them later. Thanks for the outstanding thread!

You shall not play with Bishops with miters.! I will turn the Bishops with miters towards me thus, making them Dubrovnik Bishops.! Thanks for the nice pics. Its a nice looking set.

Amen.

I've located the photos of my first Grossmeister set of this type. Here is is on my 2.5" Jaques board...

The kings. The white king is mismatched and I'm replacing it with the king from the second set.

The beautiful queens...

The miter-cut bishops...

The knights. Wood heads for the white; plastic heads for the black...

The rooks are extremely nice. Thicker stems. Stout turrets. They're my favorite pieces in this set. 

Omg, the chess set envy is real.

I don't have anything nice right now, but I was hoping to treat myself to a nice board for christmas. I have always LOVED soviet style sets, but I don't have the type of money to buy a vintage set.

Would you have any suggestions for somewhere to look for a reasonably priced soviet style (or similar) set? I'm looking to not break $150, if that's even possible.

Thanks.