Reproduction and Real Jaques of London Chess Set

You are correct rcmacmillan! There were many carvers that carved the way they wanted to or were most comfortable with. However Crumiller's knight is the only one I have seen with the deep divot and a pierced eye. 

If anyone has photos of 1849 club size knights (that aren't ivory) that vary from the 3 different kinds in this post please post them here. It would be nice to get them all together!

I guess my main gripe is that (in my humble opinion) the knight that I think looks the best hasn't been reproduced properly yet. The "1849 Cook 2" according to Alan Fersht. You could say I'm being very picky but when I look at examples on Wikipedia and other references it is the one I see the most.

RulezSuck, the 1849 2.0 by Chess Bazaar is the closest reproduction to what I want. However the knight is huge!  It's 3.11" tall when it should be 2.67", the set is not antiqued (my personal preference) and there is no kingside stamping. So even if I bought the set it wouldn't work with my Official Staunton 1851 antiqued set.   

I certainly don't like the tail thing in the photo above and I don't want 1849 knights with pierced eyes either. I wonder if anybody knows the name of some of the actual carvers? It seems some were much better than others. Maybe I shouldn't have called the knights I like "Cook" Type 2.  If someone knows what to call them please let me know, I just started at this.

What I do know is, I think the knights I like from the auction photos are gorgeous and I can't find any reproductions where I think the knights are gorgeous! 

I think I can also safely add that the reproductions as they are manufactured today have grooves that are to deep and are not as subtle as they should be!

 Hi Robert, Rc Mcmillan.

Just a note to say that Jaques used boxwood for the knight's heads on early sets. The rest of the dark side was ebony. I do not know when they made the change to ebony for the knights heads

There are a number of ways to date early sets. So if the box has gotten separated along with the label one can always look for the registration lozenge affixed to the felts, as all early sets had this glued to each piece  they seem to have been produced in small batches as there are significant printing errors from batch to batch (Missing date no 5 the wrong way round and so on.

The Leuchars overstamped 3.5 which has been mentioned had the earliest lozenges and therefore can be dated to the first 80 sets made. Why Jaques allowed Leuchars (a retailer of fancy goods) to overstamp their sets is a mystery as they did it to ivory sets also.

One thing to be careful of is that there is a ready market for Jaques boxes to match up to sets and I know that Garick Coleman (God rest his soul) had a small saucer of lozenges in a corner of his shop to match up to likely sets as they came in and would pay handsomely for Jaques boxes especially carton pierre.

 another point to watch for in ivory sets is that some enterprising dealer in the past was putting canton knights heads on sets in place of the Jaques ones.

Well, I feel 2.67" knight is too small for 4.4" set and if the knight is not properly matched, the set will look disproportioned.

Uthor is right, ChessBazaar only seems capable of making knights that look ridiculously large compared to the other pieces in their sets. A knight that is taller than a bishop in any chess set will look ridiculous.

also: I just took a look at the CB website. It says the rooks are only 2 mm taller than the pawns (!!), while there is only 1 mm between the knight and bishop. Surely this set was created by someone who lacked the pair of spectacles he so desperately needed?

I agree, this old rule is best with Staunton style sets but adjustments must be made where sets are taller or shorter than average. Even declination in this set is not accurate.

Actually, I think I like the proportioning of that 1851 set the most of any chess set I have ever seen. If there were a smaller reproduction of that set out there I'd jump on that like a kangaroo on burning coal.

if the idea is classical proportions then the angle must be a pythagorean triangle.

Oh no David not the dreaded Pythagorean triangle....

3.4.5 and so on. This will not do. The only good thing to say about this (PT) is that it is handy in building work to make right angle corners.

What is going to happen now is that someone will bring up the golden mean and that set Luca Pacioli drew and that Leonardo was supposed to have illustrated.

Fibonacci is going to be dragged in and God knows what else....

Well, Nadin is very young and very passionate, and I suspect his views on such things will evolve, especially if he hangs out with old walruses like us.

Yes indeedy walruses.

However having brought up the luca pacioli set myself I will look for pictures of what I think Pacioli (not Leonardo) was illustrating as his chess diagram pictures.

If anyone does not know about this book, it was probably the first chess puzzle books and had hand written diagrams like so:-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/design/14leon.html

I usually don't express my ideas the most clear way.

In antiquity harmonic geometry was directly related to music, there is some musical theory... but if it sounds tuned then it looks harmonic...

Check the proportions of the lines in this harp:

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/23600/23617/kinnor_23617.htm

This all come in hand with sacred geometry, and the stone masons that created the classical architecture, but I know this is a topic that you don't really like. But the principle behind music and architecture is the same, and if cess designs want to follow this geometry then this things need to be considered.

In my opinion.

I use the harp as example because it is the basic string instrument.

If you compare with a guitar where all the strings are the same length, so they archive the notes by changing the think of the string and the tension on it.

An harp, in the other hand, like the one I show... you take a string and tense it, if you pinch it it gives you a note, if you hold it in the middle and pinch it it gives you the same note 1 scale up, then all the other notes will be fraction divisions between this 2 lengths.

So with the same string you can make the full musical scale by changing the length of it.

Here another example of this same principle, a xylophone make with glasses, the level of the water gives a different vibration, and then again we get the same line pattern we got with the length of the strings on the harp:

Here one more example, a pan flute:

Evey musical instrument that uses classical musical theory will be the same in principle, half the length is the same note in the next scale, then you do fractions to get all the notes in between. How else would you achieve harmony? visually you will find this same angle, that then is consider an angle that brings harmony.

Here the same picture you posted on post #2090 withte proportions harmonized on this theory:

At one end the kind, then the king half the size for the next chess set, then I fraction all the pieces using harmonic theory that you can find on this page:

http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html

I made the horse a F# because we have 6 pieces instead of 7 musical notes, and I like the horse better so I did it this way.

So at least on this theory this is the height they should have, there is much more about the internal proportions of each piece and the so, but here I am talking just the height of them.

I hope this helps explain what I am talking about.

All the above ideas about musical harmonies and architecture is all very well and no doubt there is something in it, but the examples of the relationship of and evidence for architectural influences and chess set design is pretty thin.

As in the article in the Smithsonian magazine, the stone columns they give as examples to support their argument bear little if any similarity to chess shapes. I have never seen any evidence, convincing or otherwise to support links between the Free masons and chess design. That is not to say that Staunton and Jaques were not members of the above mentioned 'mediocre mafia'. In fact I would not be at all surprised if they were at least members of the same London clubs. That the Staunton design came from the iconography of the London published chess books of the day is undeniable of course. However a look at earlier pieces does need some research to find for example where the tower for rook and horse for knight came from. The picturs of a wood turner making a set in the book of Alphonso the wise (13thc) clearly shows these pieces (Knight as horse, rook as castle) It may be that when the rules for the queen move changed in the 15thc that chess design generally underwent some reappraisal;

Oh, I am not claiming that there is a link, I am saying that if there was a link it should be evident, because will use the same design language.

So far all the link to classical architecture (something masons are very involve with) is the face of a horse.

To my eyes, these new 1849 knights from CB are closer to the original mark. Personally, I would prefer the old version.
http://www.chessbazaar.com/reproduced-1849-staunton-knights-in-ebony-antiqued-boxwood-3-1.html?___SID=U

Agreed about the pricing.