magictwanger wrote:
Efim, that is very similar to my 19th Century Soviet Alekhine set which I bought 2 years ago from a seller named "Oldset". I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and hope this seller is still around, since he was from the Ukraine.
@magictwanger they called it "Alekhine set" because the Moscow museum displayed it together with a book by Alekhine, even though there is no real connection to Alekhine (at least none that I would be aware of).
Regarding Andrej (aka Oldset), I have sad news, as I recently learned that he was killed earlier this year defending Ukraine. He was a fine craftsman providing many beautiful sets to the chess world.
You are right, a seller's label of origin can only be taken as a hint. I combined the regency sets you posted with a couple of sets I have and sets offered online to pose a question concerning certain elements that could be indicative of a local style- or not.
All in all, tournament pictures are not the only source. There would be private pictures and there would be the memory of people who still have such sets in their homes who still know where those are from.
I had a look at my handful of Olympiad books, but Warsaw 1935 was not among them. I found out that Miroslawa Litmanowicz, (1928-2017) wrote a 362-pages book on it in 1996. She was an international master and successful chess writer, her husband was a player and chess arbiter and journalist. There are two historical photos of her playing online in an obituary. I do not know if the photos are taken in tournaments played in Poland, though.
Mirosława Litmanowicz i Krystyna Radzikowska – odwieczne rywalki, oddane sobie przyjaciółki. archiwum Mirosławy Litmanowicz
Mirosława Litmanowicz – połowa lat 1960-tych archiwum Mirosławy Litmanowicz
Władysław Litmanowicz