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Leads on these Polish or Russian pieces?

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ogbumblingpatzer

Someone posted a pic of this set to Reddit and I am interested in the origin of the pieces. Any leads on finding them?

mgyuri73

Wegiel royal 48 from Poland

ogbumblingpatzer

Thanks. That's the right general style, which should help my search!

griesgramdergrobe

Hi ogbumblingpatzer,
could you find out anything about the origin of the pieces? I inherited this chess set from my grandfather, from whom I learned to play. I know he is from a small village in the south of the polish region of Opole. I would be also interested in any information.
The hint with the Wegiel Design is certainly a good one to start - thx mgyuri73! -, although proportions differ quite a bit. If I understand right, the Wegiel guys started producing in 1964 and probably standardized their design back then, but this set I am quite sure is some decades older.
Let me know, if you have anymore information!

Greetings from Chile,

Thorsten

CandyHansen

I have a set almost identical to this one, what I know is that my Great grandfather brought it back from Poland after WW2. So my guess is this chess set was at least made in 1935 -1940. I would love to know roughly how much it's worth. I love the folk art style of this set. 

Drawgood

Are you sure you like this set? It looks cute, and I will say I even like the pieces shapes, but it looks too different from the standardized Staunton sets. I would imagine it would be too distracting to play.

I will add that the shape of these pieces actually has longer history in Poland. I remember looking for photos and clips of chess in movies. I think there is even a website where someone collected screenshots of depictions of chess from all films they could find. I think this type of pieces appears in old black and white Polish tv or movie, so it must have been a design that Polish people associate with their country. The one in the movie was less decorated.

Kovylkino

They are?

zoltanszlovak

Grandparent’s Chess set

Hi everyone! 
This is a Chess set my grandparents bought in Zakopane in the 1970s,can anyone find anything about  it?

 

marienDB

Tharkun2112

Lots of really awesome pieces.

Drawgood
These aren’t the most popular Wegiel pieces so they pop up in online auctions quite often. If you like them more freedom to you, but they’re not the most valuable. I think Wegiel makes(made? They may not exist under Wegiel name anymore) better sets.
ungewichtet

I like these sets. It wasn't long after I had found a good one that another one was handed down to me! The first set was in the family for three generations and the seller's family came from Poland. The second, from my grand aunt, was bought in Poland, probably in the sixties. Her husband an active club player, brought it home from a trip. The Korchnoi pic is fantastic, the pieces look all orderly, and so do the squares. (But then, if they were confusing, he probably could play them like an aided blindfold). It is obvious, I believe, that the rare floral bishop version shown on all sets here so far is the desirable one compared to the two obelisque bishop quartetts I have. They are not bad, though.

I will post both my sets here for their psychedelic value, I guess. I haven't played with them, yet.

How can you play with this? happy.png

These are two positions from a famous game, Viktor Kuznetsov - Gzegorz Gajewski (0-1), (black to move above, white to move below). Such a game could not have been played on such sets like mine.. But maybe Mr. Kuznetsov would say that they played their game on just such a set! wink.png

Drawgood

I checked online in different photos and diagrams. What I found is that in the 20th century this designed was most commonly used in Poland. On the website about chess in film there are some screenshots I saw while back (don’t have the link) from a black and white Polish movie. But prior to the 20th century there are some pieces that look like that in pre Staunton Russian historic pieces. But it’s not clear whether the Russian pieces were borrowed from Persia/Iran or whether they travelled there from Spain as designs from Muslim Andalusia(pre “re conquista Moor Spain” as it’s sometimes referred to)

ungewichtet

I have found a colourful flowered mitre type set, too. This one resembles Marien's with the bulbous bishops, while the first two posted sets' bishops all rise more vertically. Korchnoi plays with the bulbous; but with uncoloured flowers.. cool! He seems to play on a chess table, not on a folding board like they were part and parcel of these sets. My set was brought from the vicinity of Sicily to Germany from the seller's father-in-law, who got it from his parents.