Post Your Chess Sets

What an excellent find. I’d be delighted with such a set. That board is wonderful!

Chess Museum identifies that box as used by Lardy in the 1930s-1940s. Don’t know how definitive that is.

Fascinating board. Are those handles on the side to carry it around? I don't think I've seen anything like that before on a chess board.

@Walterbiensur Nice set! As @Ziryab mentioned, it looks like a Lardy from the 40s. From studying a lot of Lardy sets, the deliberate pointy tops seem to occur only in the 40s & 50s.

I own a set in a similar red box (without pointy pawns) that came with 2 types of knights. The one on the left is a later type (probably introduced around end of 40s) and the one on the right earlier (probably 30s/40s). As you can see they have different body shapes, jaw lines and noses.

The funny thing is that both dark and light pieces in my set came with knights of both types. This set is in pristine condition & pieces have very similar signs of age & patina. The bases are identical too, so I don't expect the knights to be later replacements. A tentative conclusion is that the was compiled at a time where Lardy transitioned to the new type of knight.

Here’s another Lardy set, this one with glass eyed knights, 90mm king height. This type of knight predates the other two posted earlier. certainly pre WWII (see also here)

Glass eyed knights became very popular in the 1930s.

Never seen a chess set like that before!

@broomstruck My glass eye Lardy set was bought in 1964. I still have it today.

That’s amazing!

And thanks @MCH818!

My Lardy set was bought in the mid 1970's in Greenwich Village...."The Village Chess Shop" to be exact. My cost,with wooden box, was a mere $15.00....They had a nice club there and I "think" Bobby Fisher used to play there.

At least that's what the guy who crushed me there told me.

Looks exactly the same to me indeed, a beautiful specimen, thanks for posting! It has also the same king height at 3.5"/89mm. I actually have another one without glass eyes that came in the typical red box. Looking at the height of the base of the knight I would assume it is a Lardy. But it's very hard to prove.

I have acquired quite a collection of Lardy's - I've lost count. I'm lucky that they are fairly commonly available here in mainland Europe. Not this one with the glass eyes though - I've only seen one being offered, but chessmuseum.com showcases a similar set. It is certainly one of my favourites!

Sorry for the detour in this thread . Here’s another favourite - the more modern style - maybe from the 70s. KH is about 4.1”. Box is not from this set.

@MCH818 Yours is in a fantastic condition. A very precious set for sure. The sets with antique stain of the dark pieces are fairly rare here. But I do really like them. 

Indeed, it looks like the oldest sets are carved finer. That seems to be the case for many of the more premium staunton sets that were produced in the early 20th century.

Here's a German set also made in that timeframe (30s/40s). One of my overall favourites! King height is 85mm and they are lightly weighted. The knights are probably copied/inspired by the Hastings set from 1895

@mch818 I believe you are right - the black laquered finish was the only finish they came in initially - at least I haven't seen any other finishes. But they still used it on newer sets as well - I have many 60/70/80s sets with that finish.

I was really lucky finding the German set. I didn't even know exactly what it was until I got it in my hands. It was sold on a local Craiglist site and the pictures were so bad that I couldn't even see that the knights had glass eyes. But the patina was visible so I knew it was old. Best surprise ever I can tell you.

It seems to me that the newer glass-eyed Lardys that you mention have also been inspired by the Hastings design - or possibly this German version. Unfortunately they all lack the level of detail of these older sets.

Some more pictures of my Noj. The light was a little better this time, but not much. I've had more fun with the composition this time though.

This one was intended for the silhouettes and reflections thread, although it didn't quite come out as I'd hoped.

And now for something different. Photographing the Noj prompted me to take some shots of another set I haven't got out for a while. This is the Staunton Castle Attica, which wasn't quite my first chess set but was the set that got me into collecting. When I first saw this I thought the knight was the most beautiful I'd ever seen. That was before I saw the Legend Alegria. But I still love it.

Unfortunately the set suffers from the principal issue that has put me off buying any more sets from SC (indeed, the issue that has kept this one in storage for nine months): it's huge. The king is marketed as 4" but is closer to 4.25" and the knights are, as I believe the phrase goes, "hecking chonkers". It requires a correspondingly large board (the one in the shots has 60mm squares, and even then forget fitting four pawns in one), so overall it's just too big for everyday use. Not an issue for a one-off (which this was intended to be, a statement piece to mark an occasion) but not something I want to be the norm for my collection. Leaving aside completely the question of storage (these pieces currently occupy a cardboard box that originally housed cheese, since I haven't found an appropriately dimensioned wooden box for them yet). I would in principle quite like some of their other sets (the Danum, the Chariot of Selene, the Austrian Coffeehouse) but at an advertised 4" - 4.4" (and knowing that this set was advertised at 4" and came out bigger) they're just too big for my space and possibly any realistic space. Why can't they make them in a nice 3.75"?!

Edit: Please excuse the sideways pictures. I don't know how to fix that. They were the right way up when I uploaded them!

Thanks! I absolutely can't fault the workmanship on the Attica. The points on the queen and the knights' ears feel sharp to the touch (although this is a slight handicap when actually playing with the set!) and no toolmarks or crafting imperfections that I've noticed on any of the pieces. Both of the black rooks did crack within a couple of weeks of the set's arrival, but Mandeep replaced them without serious fuss.

I know what you mean about not wanting a board for just one set. Board creep is real. I certainly won't be getting anything bigger than this one unless I move to somewhere with a huge garden and get an outdoor set, or the like...

Harthacnut,....That Attica set is stunning! I love those Knights.

Now I know the "real reason" why Al Pacino kept shouting the phrase "Attics...Attica" in "Dog Day Afternoon"......Who knew at the time?

What chess set would that be?

@MCH818 Another beautiful set! I must admit that I do like the sligtly naughty looking fat headed chavet bishops. The knights in those sets look quite similar with older type of Lardy knights. It is of course very well possible that Lardy kept producing multiple types in parallel (assuming they produced these knights for Chavet).

A little grey parcel arrived today.. Escardibul Stawton No. 7 (!) This beautiful design with the elegant knights from around 1970 can still be found, but whenever I saw it, it was offered in a smaller size- small and wonderful. I did never think of a tournament size version. But the one line description said 'wooden chess pieces, felted, 5-9,5 cm tall.'

Here they are on an old Spanish folding board.

Still dusty..

and all shiny!

Olive wood, I believe. For the black pieces it may be the same.