Thanks

By the way, I am making pictures from my sets and found another Grob's set, the same as depicted above with the box with three compartments. The middle is for a book. I will soon post pics here.

Searching the net, I once found a very beautiful and detailed biographical sketch on Henry Grob. It is online on the pages of the Schachgesellschaft Zürich, and it was written by Richard Forster as part of his Jubiläumsschrift Schachgesellschaft Zürich: 1809 bis 2009.

https://sgzurich.ch/index.php/henry-grob

In it, the author mentioned two weeklies Grob had published: the Schachkurier (1935-37) and the Schach-Express (1949-51) which were 'still an entertaining read today'. Spurred by this paragraph as well as the informative, friendly article as a whole, I decided I'd try to contact Mr. Forster and ask him for help dating Grob's chess pieces. (Of course, I also referenced our thread Via the friendliness of Unionsverlag, Zürich, that helped me deliver my mail, I was able to ask the noted writer of biographies of Amos Burn and Emanuel Lasker and chess player (a Swiss international, himself) if he knew somebody who had access to an archive and might, out of shared enthusiasm, look for early ads of the chessmen in Grob's publications.

A day or two later, I received a comprehensive answer: Schachkurier (1935-37) and the first edition of Die Eröffnung (..) (1938) contained no ads, neither did the second edition or Grob's Schachkalender 1942 feature the pieces. They were shown in 100 Ausgewählte Fernpartien, II. Sammlung (1944) and in Grob's Schachkalender 1944, though:

In 1946, there was an advertisement in the 3rd edition of Die Eröffnung (..) where sets of three different sizes were offered:

The day before, I had received a copy of Endspiele (..), second print, (1946) which contained two pages nearly identical to that (just the prices for the pieces went up a bit):

To make the picture complete Mr.Forster told me that the pieces were continuously advertised in Grob's Schach-Express (1949-51) but only until number 13/1950 (that came out on March, 31st), and not later, suggesting that this may have been when Grob ran out of stock with no further batches planned.

And the mail concluded like this: "Last but not least- and that might have been the simplest way, to begin with- the Schweizer Zeitungsarchiv gives us quite a precise answer."

Hans Johner in der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung vom 20.12.1943:

Paul Lange in der Tat vom 25.12.1943:

 Two reviews (that I will translate in another post)! So Grob's chessmen were released end of 1943!

Thank you for this amazing bit of work, dear Richard Forster. Shouts and cheers to brasileiro and Marcel Herbst and everyone else who got a bit into this story

Well, yes, thank you Richard Forster (und ungewichtet)! However, why are Grob's chess pieces not reissued? I had (eMail) contact (some years ago) with the daughter of Henry Grob (I do not know her name and address any longer, but if my memory is correct she lived in the Seefeld quarter of Zürich then) and I had asked her about the (availability of) the pieces. I do not know the situation of the property rights. Perhaps Richard Forster knows the daughter of Grob (if she is still living) or her descendants, and could enquire about reissuing Grob's set. There are Indian companies that produce custom sets (and they could easily be produced in Switzerland as well and sold by Heimatwerk ...).

Ungewichtet, a lot of relevant information concerning the Grob chess set. I guess I still have one or two of such sets which I would sale. By the way, recently I found a nice little travel chess set in my collection. I would post here when this item is for sale in Ricardo. The travel set is one of those used in the past by people playing correspondence chess.

By the way, I don't think that there is a huge demand for Grob's sets at the moment, at least not in Switzerland. People who bought my sets are usually not from Switzerland. And I am talking about original sets, one of them which is probably from the first generation. I never understood why collectors are generally quite unaware of the obvious importance of these futuristic sets. I can imagine that the present thread supplies the biggest amount of information on this topic in the history. Or perhaps I am wrong?

By the way, did I mentioned already that I had the Grob’s chess clock depicted in the advertisement? I think it had a stamp "Schachverlag Grob". I sold it a time ago to a collector specialised in chess clocks. He also bought one of my chess clocks used in the 6th Olympics in Warsaw, Poland in 1935. I am still a little bit sad that I sold both, but the people who got them are serious collectors, not like me, who was more a chess "messy horder" 🤣. At least I was able to redirect some of my chess collection to other people. Interestingly, by selling big part of my collection I began to appreciate the things that I still have. Life is sometimes funny.

Dear Marcel Herbst, I agree. I'd be in favour of a reissue, too.

Years ago, Richard Forster had met the late Paula Grob, who continued Schachverlag Grob. The estate he had the chance to see was not about the chess pieces.

On the box in the second photo of brasileiro's thread-opening post it reads "Schweizer Fabrikat" (made in Switzerland) and "Mod.dép." which I presume stands for "modèle déposé" or some other term for registered utility model. But is this recorded, and were the rights inherited?

Brasileiro, judging from your own experiences selling a couple of original Grob's pieces, you now say there might be not much of a market for an underestimated set futuristic and collectible.

Was it a success when it originally came out? A run of over 6 years, for some time offered in three different sizes, doesn't sound bad, while it probably hasn't conquered Switzerland as Grob hoped it would, or he'd kept producing. "Thousands are already playing with Grob's chess pieces" and "tried and proven in many championships" as say the 1946 advertisements can but need not mean thousands of sales, or a breakthrough on the tournament scene. We'd need many photos from club championships and living rooms/garden tables/coffee houses to make an estimate of their popularity.

Let me translate some lines from the two reviews from December 1943, presumably written on release of Grob's Turnier-Schachfiguren, to see how they were originally received by the trade press:

Hans Johner, NZZ: "Grob's pieces, lacquered in wood, available in a tournament size, will soon become a household item. Simple in form, granting a good overview, with no breakable decorative parts, well-defined. Being dapper in spite of their calm lines they owe to the interaction of the player and the artist we find in Henry Grob."

Paul Lange, Die Tat: "The always enterprising Henry Grob some time ago has faced up to a challenge nobody has yet managed to meet: To produce chess pieces, so far largely imported from abroad, big time in Switzerland, and for an affordable price.

He is determined to take his own, and, it seems to us, daring path. His creation is not so easy to cope with at first sight, because in their simple and stern objectivity, his pieces seem somewhat revolutionary, and the eye has to get used to them. But over the board, ready to fight, we soon befriend them. The well balanced relations of size are pleasing, the modest lines surprisingly elegant, only the pawns we would have wished a little slimmer. We see big gain in the omission of any brittle decoration- for example, the infamous broken horse-heads seem to be a problem favourably solved.

We are glad to see Grob's courageous initiative, as it offers- besides sidestepping today's troubles of import- some Swiss workers a modest but welcome job. The price of the representative chessmen, as stated above, is affordable: 10 Franken for a complete set in a cardboard box, available in shops of the trade or, if not, also directly from Schachverlag Grob, Seefeldstr.47, Zürich 8"

It sounds they were off to a good start. He sure promoted them, for example using them in matches with Euwe and Najdorf in the Jelmoli department store in Zürich, (which has just closed its doors after 126 years in February).

I like playing with them, and the pawns are essential, unmissable!

Bundesform and Grob's set were popular not necessarily because the futuristic design, but because the low prices. Robustness or design were probably not primary motivation for most players. I am speculating here, but there were probably a huge difference regarding the production costs between let's say a classic Staunton set or a Regence set and a Grob's set. By far the most popular sets produced before 1960 which I found in flea markets in Switzerland are Régence.

Low cost and not modern design was in my opinion the main factor in the conception of Bundesform. Nazi Germany was certainly not very receptive to modern art (check "entartete Kunst").

[However , the relationship between the Nationalsozialismus and modern design (like Bauhaus) is more complicated than most people thought. Yes, 24 Bauhaus members were killed by the Nazi regime, but several also worked voluntary for the very same regime. ].

Anyway, the early examples designs are fascinating and barely touched by historians (apart the well researched Bauhaus sets).

Bundesform was conceived for the Munich 1936 inofficial olympiad event, pushed by the Schachbund and designed to be an alternative to Staunton. But I know very little about it and would have to read books. (My personal view on Bundesform, which was the rule in tournament sets still in the 1980ies were I met them as a youth, I once have described here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/munich-36-pieces-bundesform?page=2

The intersection with Grob's project may be the idea of low production costs, modernity and durability. Grob emerged with a beautiful set, Bundesform, I believe, did not look for that. How do you see it?

Bundesform and Grob have similarities. Perhaps Grob used the Bundesform as inspiration for his own set. If this is true, low cost of production was probably the main motivation for both sets. However, if Grob's set was designed independently from Bundesform, Grob may have the intention of creating a modern, futuristic set which coincidentally has similarities to the Bundesform. "Coincidentally", but really, as simple designs tend to converge: simple forms but still immediately characterized as Staunton leads obviously to constraints.

Grob could not not know Bundesform, he also played in Munich 1936. (I googled that and the first game that appeared in the search was Zinner-Grob from round 11.

Czech Emil Zinner died in Maydanek concentration camp in 1942).

Grob made pieces that do not outright reject Bundesform, but they are so different. The pawns' heads are round, their stems are about in line with those of king, queen, bishops and rooks; compare these with the hapless Bundesform foot soldiers. King, queen and rook all have tops that are rising half imperceptibly towards the center, the bishops are rather Eastern European-oriented, the knight, in most chess sets the one piece with a face, is abstracted to a 2-dimensional jigsaw knight, a silhouette the size of a piece. So that's where the character is? What an experiment, Mr.Grob! All pieces share two rings around the base, fresh like the first two rings from a stone dropped into water, giving the set a vibrant presence, unity and liveliness. -I can also take a stance like 'nice try, but not my cup of tea', see it dust away with 1960ies furniture in a vitrine and not be in love with the set. But it's the pawns, their most simple universal Spielfigur-Hemdsärmeligkeit (universal playing piece down-to-earth shirt sleeves informality) that always brings me back. Bundesform is less sophisticated, which is not a fault per se, but in my eyes Bundesform could never recover from its ugly pawns and bishops. It's bedazzling, but it was played in Germany deep into the 80ies, 90ies. My own typical 80ies club mixed Bundesform set carries many dear bughouse memories (we called it 'Tandem').

I agree, ungewichtet: Grob's design is far superior to the Bundesform! I do not think that the Bundesform was necessarily serving as a model for Grob's design: there were a range of designs around at the time to suggest a modern version of a chess set. And regarding the pricing, brasileirosim: I think the design stood in the foreground, not the price (the price differences between a normal set and a Grob set must have been minimal, I presume). One could pursue this question further, however.

Perhaps the price wasn’t a factor for the consumer, but perhaps for the producer. Yes, some research is needed here.

I find it interesting that chess journalist Paul Lange in the first review of the pieces begins by pointing out Grob's accomplishment to produce pieces en gros in Switzerland for a reasonable price.

Also, Grob, in one of his first advertisements for the chessmen closes a list of qualities making his pieces desirable with the exclamation 'unrivaled in price!'

Paul Lange picks up the economy theme later, when he honours that the production creates some modest but welcome jobs for some Swiss workers.

Money would play a role in 1943, Grob knew the ~9 year old Bundesform. In my eyes, his pieces 'make it'. Bundesform was produced under economical constraints, Grob's pieces were. I, personally, find beautiful what Grob made out of it; Bundesform failing me in that sense. (But Bundesform was produced for about as many decades as Grob's were produced years)!

Grob soon offering three sizes and, a short time later, going up in prize from 10 Schweizer Franken to 14, finally 16 Schweizer Franken (for the tournament size), proves that they were at least a certain success, and maybe indicates that he had sold them at a minimal profit margin in the beginning.

Henry Grob was (I believe) the third Swiss chess professional, and the first who made his living in Switzerland. He knew what he was doing. He was also a painter, once advertising his craft on the last page of his 'Internationales Schachturnier Zürich 1961' tournament book:

Did he compromise his art? No, like everyone, he was working with what there was, economical restrictions and necessities included. Chess pieces, books or portraits alike.

He started 'die Fernschachzentrale' in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1941. His objective had been to offer correspondence chess to Swiss men in military service, but the idea became a popular hit and it was opened up to everyone (I don't know if from the start or just when). Grob (1904-1974) kept playing his readers for decades, into the 1970ies, playing more than 3000 games.

He kept count and sometimes used these games in his chess books. For example, he closes his 1946 book Endspiele with an endgame loss against H.Jaun, also from Zürich:

Let's have another look at the position

What's a grob chess set?

Check the first post in this thread. It is a modern looking chess set, somehow similar to the German Bundesform. A Staunton set with minimalistic design.

I will upload a few leaves of Schach Kurier, Grob's chess news he issued as a weekly two-pager from 1935-37. A Zürich old book shop, Biblion, had offered 27 issues, and I described the owner my quest for possible early Grob's advertisements for Grob's Turnier-Schachfiguren. He was so kind to make photos of the only ad in them and the three issues it occurred in. Accomplished Swiss friendliness, once again: He took the pics right before shipping them to or handing them over to the buyer of the lot. Which makes for the bitter drop of medicine for me: Here, maybe, I should have spontaneously risked some money for a look into Grob's weekly work and his style in his own newspaper. Now somebody else has got that opportunity and I know what I am missing

But let's have a look at the glimpse we can have:

The Schachservice offered is nothing less than to- for a moderate fee- play the first Swiss professional player in person, a phone call is all that is needed to make a date, with game analysis and advice as a free option.

This down-to-earth-ness worked for Henry Grob: A year later, he would have his biggest international success, sharing first in Ostend with Keres and Fine, beating both Grandmasters (Keres seems to have overstepped time after thinking for 20 minutes, when he believed he had already made time control, in an equal position. Grob beat Fine in a long double rook ending. Then, after two losses against List and Koltanowski, Grob beat Tartakower in a very nice tactical game: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1471414 ). 

Returning to the numbers of Schach Kurier shown here: In the issue on top in the first picture, showing the whole lot, Grob honours the new Russian school of chess with a short yet detailed description. In the second issue pictured, Grob recounts how Zürich's Worker's Chess Club earned its quick and broad success, closing with an invitation to join the Easter trip to meet and play Danish players in a team event in Kopenhagen, Denmark. 

The next photo shows an issue dedicating one and a half columns to recount in detail (and 'second hand', from an interview in a Hungarian chess publication) the technical, organisational developments in the -Nazi- German Grossdeutscher Schachbund. 

On the next pic, among other local news and games of Dr.Aljechin against Vera Menchik and Pelikan, he is introducing the new, quickly growing Jüdischer Schachklub Zürich, that won a match against the Academic Chess Club Zürich by the score of 8:4. 

"The continuous development of chess life brings a growing demand for experienced partners"- these words start off the chess service ad. Save to say he was into it

Thank you ungewichtet — and Biblion! Indeed, very interesting!