Project: restoring Grandpa's chess pieces

Even though the pieces still need a layer of felt, I'm calling this project done

I gave the pieces two coats of oil and polished them lightly with a cotton cloth. 

I couldn't be happier with the result <3 

The black pieces are not so uniformly black, and on the white pieces the grain is actually visible with all its imperfections (anyone who every looked at my recorder collection knows I'm a complete sucker for a bit of wildly-patterned wood...)

Thank you to everyone who offered advice

Anyway, feast your eyes:

Damn, look at the grain on that queen!

WOW!  They came out beautifully!  Very well done, Ma'am!  And I love the board as well.

Hahaha, the black pieces would fetch a fortune at Purling London! 

Thank you so much :-)

*googles "Purling London"* 

Well, they're not quite that ... eccentric

Good job. I like that the pieces still have nice sharp defined edges on the features after all these years. When you get to felting the pieces consider something besides boring green to personalize them. Perhaps red?  I'm not sure if this was asked before but, how tall is the king and pawn? 

That's probably the weirdest compliment I ever got, thank you 

You're right, it is a completely random set, not very valuable or otherwise exceptional. But precisely that made it an ideal target for a bit of messing-around.

All together they look fabulous...good spaces​between pieces on the board, great wooden texture visible on white squares, pieces got good colour just those minor golden stroke are visible on black pieces but that too is fine...and yeah great photo shot too...

Thank you for your kind words 

I'm not quite certain about these pieces with this board, since for me the board feels too big for these pieces. But I'll leave them standing like this for a while and see if the combination grows on me...

Absolutely

Thank you :-)

Choosing a different color for the felt is a good idea, I'll see what I can get.

The king is 80mm and the pawn is 37mm

So, when you put all that paint remover on them and all of the varnish came off the black pieces stayed black? Are they painted or stained or are they Ebony?

They look great!

Yes, they lost a bit of color, but stayed black-ish. It's clearly white wood underneath all of that so I have no idea why they kept any color at all.

Thank you

@ ms Daniela I think I found the same set lol

You totally did

Where did you find it, and do you have any information about it?

From local craiglist. It came without a box and the seller buys and resells all kind of stuff, he doesn't have a clou unfortunately.

I've been thinking since Germany and The Netherlands are close, it can't be a coincidence two the same set with broad collar pawns show up. In Assen there used to be toy manufacturer / seller HOMAS, it shut down somewhere round the 80's. It could be HOMAS who sold this set.

That chess clock in the background looks interesting...

It's Garde chess clock I grew up with in the 80's. It was the standard chess clock used in clubs and Dutch official tournaments.

It’s looks somewhat similar as in the queen’s gambit 

It does look the same without the label. It was made in former East Germany.