It's a little Fasnacht Umzug parade I drummed up to celebrate your threads. Thank you, brasileirosim! a8, e8, g8 are Bundesform, b8, c8, a, c, f and h-pawns from an unknown set that could be pre-war or space age, d8, b, d, e and g-pawns from an unknown Staunton set, f8, h8 unknown to me again. All 4 sets may be contemporaries of your wonderful Grob set, but, except for bundesform, need not.
Grob…not the opening, but his chess set
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🙂👍Danke!
Feb 8, 2024
0
#24
Re Henry Grob's chess set: it was used in the Café Select (I myself used it there). The Select house was bought by Willy Boesiger (a noted designer who had worked with Le Corbusier) in 1935 (see https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/das-select-haus-am-limmatquai-wird-wieder-einmal-neu-erfunden-ld.1521459), and he subsequently renovated it (including also a small movie theater). Most renovations of Boesiger were subsequently retracted, and Boesiger's wonderful Café (an icon of modern architecture) was — unnecessarily — destroyed (the furniture that was used then it still produced by Horgen Glarus). Grob's chess pieces that must have entered the environment immediately after the renovation (I presume) fitted well: so they must have been produced just after 1935.
Thanks for the wonderful information! If 1935 is correct this set is really something! Produced before the Bundesform! Are both sets the product of a convergent development or was the Grob's set copied by the designer of the Bundesform ? Both sets are really similar.
marcel_herbst wrote:
Re Henry Grob's chess set: it was used in the Café Select (I myself used it there). The Select house was bought by Willy Boesiger (a noted designer who had worked with Le Corbusier) in 1935 (see https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/das-select-haus-am-limmatquai-wird-wieder-einmal-neu-erfunden-ld.1521459), and he subsequently renovated it (including also a small movie theater). Most renovations of Boesiger were subsequently retracted, and Boesiger's wonderful Café (an icon of modern architecture) was — unnecessarily — destroyed (the furniture that was used then it still produced by Horgen Glarus). Grob's chess pieces that must have entered the environment immediately after the renovation (I presume) fitted well: so they must have been produced just after 1935.
This is great you can connect the set to a place. Thank you for the reference to the nzz article, as well. When was it that you played with Grob's pieces in the Cafe Select yourself?
Reading your words, to me, is not fully conclusive about the dating, in a way you put it into brackets: "Grob's chess pieces that must have entered the environment immediately after the renovation (I presume) fitted well: so they must have been produced just after 1935". The b/w photo coming with the newspaper article shows Ferdinand Grosshardt and Heiner Hesse playing on a regence pattern set. What is your source, please, that the Grob set was there from the outset?
Feb 14, 2024
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#27
Well, the dating is just a guess. The Café Select had many chess sets of Grob (perhaps 30?), and in those days the throwaway-culture did not yet exist: once a piece of furniture, tableware, glassware was bought, it was used until it broke apart. I presume that Boesiger bought chess sets (we had a number of Cafés in Zurich where chess was being played), and had he bought a different type of set, that different type of set would have been used. Hence, from the very fact that I had seen the Grob sets in the 1950s, I concluded that the chess sets must have been there from the beginning.
About my chess playing: I recall having attended and watched the candidates tournament in Zurich 1953 (I was 15 years old then), and I started to play a few years earlier. I started to frequent Café Select as a late teenager.
Nice story. The start architect was certainly attracted by modern, simple design. The Grob's set certainly doesn't contradic your guess.
Today I saw a book about Boesiger in s flea market in Interlaken. I wanted to have a look at the book later, but I forgot. I didn't expect to find anything about chess in this book, but you never know, right?
Feb 18, 2024
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#30
A few years back I had contact with Grob's daughter regarding the chess set. She must be roughly my age, and I do not now if she is still alive (she lived in Zurich at that time). I do not know any longer her name and her address. It would be nice if the chess set of Grob would go into production again. It could be sold by the souvenir shop in the Landesmuseum or the Heimatwerk.
marcel_herbst wrote:
Well, the dating is just a guess. The Café Select had many chess sets of Grob (perhaps 30?), and in those days the throwaway-culture did not yet exist: once a piece of furniture, tableware, glassware was bought, it was used until it broke apart. I presume that Boesiger bought chess sets (we had a number of Cafés in Zurich where chess was being played), and had he bought a different type of set, that different type of set would have been used. Hence, from the very fact that I had seen the Grob sets in the 1950s, I concluded that the chess sets must have been there from the beginning.
About my chess playing: I recall having attended and watched the candidates tournament in Zurich 1953 (I was 15 years old then), and I started to play a few years earlier. I started to frequent Café Select as a late teenager.
Very nice story, indeed.. Most striking, maybe, is the great number of Grob sets you mention, around 30..! For me, that sounds like the cafe bought them on their release. Or that they might even have commisioned them. -If Café Select had 30 (or in any case many, many) Grob sets, firstly, it means they found it a perfect fit for their style and would let it be their trademark sets. How was it in a room with 6 or 15 Grob sets on the tables, (as I imagine)? The Grosshardt-Hesse photo from the article suggests there were other sets used in the cafe, also. After all, there is no commanding logic, or is there? to decide whether the set was made in 1935 when the cafe opened, or a few years later, or a few years earlier.
The modern design was not for everyone. The regency was extremely popular in Europe. I guess some people would prefer a more traditional design.
Feb 19, 2024
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#33
I was looking at the photographs in the NZZ article (on the Select Café) again. None of which depict the furniture of Horgen Glarus. According to this NZZ article, the picture 2 (from left to right) shows the apartment of Boesiger (not the Café Select). Picture 3 could easily be taken in Café Select (I recognize the coffee set). And, regarding picture 1, I am doubtful that it was taken in Café Select (perhaps in Café Odeon?).
The question regarding a possible commission of Boesiger regarding the Grob chess set remains open — and challenging.
marcel_herbst wrote:
I was looking at the photographs in the NZZ article (on the Select Café) again. None of which depict the furniture of Horgen Glarus. According to this NZZ article, the picture 2 (from left to right) shows the apartment of Boesiger (not the Café Select). Picture 3 could easily be taken in Café Select (I recognize the coffee set). And, regarding picture 1, I am doubtful that it was taken in Café Select (perhaps in Café Odeon?).
The question regarding a possible commission of Boesiger regarding the Grob chess set remains open — and challenging.
Some detective work still needed here.
Ah, so the photo where they play with regence pieces was, to your judgement, not taken in Cafe Select!
I have found a Grob set complete with pieces, card board folding board and chess book sold online in Switzerland, and have just got it from the friendliest of sellers!
The remarkable thing is the extra central compartment for a book- it seems quite likely, that the book I got was sold along with the set. The book is the same book brasileirosim has got, and it is the same issue, 4th to 6th thousand from 1941.
This book here comes with an extra sheet of the current offers of the day, including Grob's Taschenschach and Grob's Schach Kalender 1944, available for Fr. 3,60, while the calendar of 1942 is listed as sold out.
If we consider the book and advertisement page as part of the whole, this would date the chess pieces as '1944 or earlier'. No great progress, but at least some.
Grob used Grob's Turnierfiguren in the matches he played against Euwe in Zürich in 1947 and against Najdorf in 1948.
credit to ullstein bild and the original photographers
I much like Marcel Herbst's argument, that, as, at the time, things were kept in use as long as they were good, and finding Grob's Turnierfiguren sets in Cafe Select by the dozens in the mid 50ies, they may as well have been there from the very beginning, that is from 1935, when the cafe opened. The best part about the story is maybe that if the Select was stacked like that, so many people must have been playing with these quite recognizable pieces that there should exist photographs and even memories that could further help dating the pieces.
As for the find, it's a joy, it's true that the ripples around the bases of all pieces are lively and fluid.
Let me add a link to a newspaper article (in German) from 2004- when Henry Grob would have turned 100- from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, where he once had established his "Fernschachzentrale" column, playing the readers more than 3000 correspondence games over several decades.
https://www.nzz.ch/article9NEGS-ld.304507
[It seems, the article is now, by May 2025, no longer available for free].
From this article, here is a paragraph about Grob's chess writing and publishing activity:
"Meanwhile, he made a name for himself as a chess organizer and writer. “Die Eröffnung unter Anwendung des Kampfplans” (1938) and “Lerne Schach spielen” (1942) saw 11 and 16 editions respectively until after his death and are probably still known to many Swiss chess fans today. There was also an endgame book (1945) and opening works for the rather frowned upon openings 1. d4 e5 (Englund Gambit, 1968) and 1. g4. Above all, thanks to his tireless research into the latter style of play ("Attack g2-g4", 1942, and "Grob's Attack 1. g2-g4", 1963 and 1969), the Zurich master acquired lasting fame, having earned the name "Grob's Attack » for this previously known opening a name which is used now worldwide. What is less known is that Grob launched two weekly chess magazines long before “Schachwoche”. The “Schach-Kurier” (1935-1937) and the “Schach-Express” (1949-1951) are sought-after rarities today, as is “Grob’s Schachkalender” (1942, 1944, 1946), which was an important contribution to Swiss chess life at the time performed."
If he launched a weekly Schach-Kurier in 1935, this means he may already have had his publishing house Schachverlag Grob in 1935. As you can see on the box in my last post, the chess set complete with pieces, board and book came out in Schachverlag Grob, as well. And while the set I found was probably bought in 1943 to 1945, he may have had Grob's Schachfiguren (cf. the different box in post no.1) ready much earlier, for example also for the start of Cafe Select.
Cafe Select in 1950, credit to getty/ullstein
The Select in 1974, credit to keystone, photo Elsbeth Leisinger
Great information, thanks for sharing!
I am in a book shop and checked Grob's book "Lerne Schach spielen" from 1949. I found an advertisement of Grob's chess set! 
Jun 2, 2024
0
#39
Please also note, that this chess book (of Grob's) is one of 11,000 to 15,000 books printed. When was the first edition (1 to 5,000) printed? Did the publication of the book go together with the chess set? Perhaps yes; perhaps no?
Yesterday's brasileirosim's photo rotated. The text on top of the page reads: "The elegant and clear pieces, thanks to their advantages, have become wide spread in a short time."
The NZZ article that I linked to and quoted in #36 may be giving the publication dates of the first editions, recounting: "'Die Eröffnung unter Anwendung des Kampfplans' (1938) and 'Lerne Schach spielen' (1942) saw 11 and 16 editions respectively until after [Grob's] death and are probably still known to many Swiss chess fans today."
This is a great set! It is not a Grob’s set, is it? Looks like an unusual Bundesform. Did you find it in Germany in a flea market? Although the pawns look like the Grob, but not the knight. Thanks for sharing!