Reproduction and Real Jaques of London Chess Set

Only natural and organic gibberish is suitable for polishing forum entries as other types of wittering can affect the color and texture of the forum entries due to the possibility of thought inside them. One person uses gibberish in order to prevent their mind from becoming too dry and cracking but wrong gibberish can even make things worse specially on forum entries that have artificially been antiqued through chemical processess. Natural and organic wittering is more expensive but it has more side effects.

All this talk is making me want to wax my pieces.

It is amazing how this guy makes up so many completely wrong things about Chess sets.

He does like to come across as an authority.  Too bad for him, he has written things showing him the opposite.

Here we go again.  Wax sits on the surface (it does not soak in to any appreciable degree) and if anything will slow down the humidity changes that are a large factor in cracking (but you'd have to seal the bases of the pieces if you were really trying to do that, moisture moves out of the end grain relatively quickly, and I doubt that that is done).  The shine come from the wax itself, not from "chemicals" in the wax.  You can get a decent finish from nothing other than beeswax, carnauba wax is much shinier, shellac wax is used in some formulations, microcrystalline wax and some synthetics are also used.  Solvents are only added to make the wax soft enough to spread and they evaporate.  Renaissance wax, by the way, is applied to bronze statues that are in the weather, and is apparently very good for that purpose (the polyethylene in the formulation may have something to do with that), but on wood is unlikely to be terribly different in practice to a decent cabinetmakers wax (removing the polyethylene is apparently a bit awkward if that is needed). The idea that you need some kind of advanced "technology and facilities" to work with wood suggests that 19th century Jaques were doing it all wrong, which I suspect is not the thought that stationmaster intended, but is a side effect of the gibberish (an unsuccessful Gish gallop).  19th century woodworking in the UK is not that different to 21st century woodworking in India, the weather is different, the tools will be more modern but basically the same, the hands doing the work are a different color, which I suspect is a factor in some of the comments in this thread.  How long it takes a four inch thick piece of wood to season in air is an interesting question. A few years ago some people were working with large pieces of French oak that are a few hundred years old and found that it was still quite damp in the centre, the traditional 1-2 years per inch rule of thumb is likely to only apply to relatively thin timber.  Wood will warp and may crack as it adjusts very slowly to humidity changes: air travel, air conditioning, fireplaces, very dry or very humid weather all contribute to the Russian roulette. Interestingly, peak monthly humidity in Amritsar is about the same as the peak monthly humidity in London, if anything, Amritsar is drier and so should be a better place for making wooden objects than somewhere like London.  

As the moon wanes, I waxed my set...

Nonsense! Jaques never had a patent on anything. They had a registration under the Ornamental Design act for their wood sets specifically No. 58607.  Red crown marks were used by other manufacturers e.g. FH Ayers. Do some research before you post, please.

That's more-or-less what my sister said. She buys junk at yard sales and then refinishes them. First step: strip them!!

Btw,the Kong Wax Sticks that I'd mentioned were for filling in the subtle cracks in pieces.Not waxing the whole piece.

Bang on Paddy!

The registration only lasted 3 years (1849 to 1851) and may be one reason why Halet waited until 1851to  register a similar design.

Jaques did take B.H. Wood to court in about 1940

Quote from Chuck Grau elsewhere on a forum here

"During the 1930s, Baruch (B.H.) Wood manufactured his own line of chess pieces that were distributed through Sutton Coldfield. In 1937, Wood advertised his namesake chess pieces for sale in CHESS Magazine and used the term ‘genuine Staunton chessmen’ in the advertisement. John Jaques & Son, Ltd., creator of the original Staunton Pattern Chess pieces sued B.H. Wood for deceptive advertising, claiming that the use of the term "Genuine Staunton" was misleading and implied the pieces were made by Jaques. Wood called Sir George Thomas, Max Euwe and Lodewijk Prins as witnesses for his defence. The case is referred to by Fred Wren in his article ‘Tales of a Woodpusher: Woodpusher’s Woodpile’, which appeared in Chess Review, 1949 and was reprinted in Reinfeld’s The Treasury of Chess Lore (New York, 1951). The issues of CHESS of the time also contained a huge amount of material on the case. The original court decision was that ‘Staunton’ alone was a permissible description, but that the phrase ‘genuine Staunton’ implied a product made by Jaques & Son, Ltd., as opposed to any Staunton pattern. However, B.H.Wood appealed and, in 1940, won."

However Wood won his appeal mainly because Alex Hammond took into court a late 19th c German set by Uhlig, claiming it was 18th c and therefore the Staunton design was well predated by this set. Hammond was a sharp operator to say the least, and not to impune the dead,  but may have, in this case, have been simply, wrong.

I remember the account from the Reinfeld book. It said that the set in question that was part of the case was squat as if it were pressed down. I always wondered what the set looked like. Do you have any ideas about that? I wonder who owns that set now?

 Hi Oval,

These 'Uhlig" sets are quite common here in the States. There was a catalogue of their sets which I guess were sold either by mail order or through some of the larger department stores like Macy's.

Not an expert by any measure,but I absolutely LOVE the House Of Staunton "pricey" Staunton super set! Personally,that's my grail set!

I had no idea that the pieces were being made today!

I supposed that it had been lost in the mists of time, for the most part.

I can see the "pressed down" aspect but in my mind's eye even moreso than the example you give.

FWIW, I like the pawn and the bishop and would like to see the whole set with that aesthetic. I think a good option for a smaller travel set, as I don't need height in my pieces for just a travel set. Nice and compact.

My old Drueke peg set was that way, and I still enjoy using it.

This is again more FWIW I loved the old Drueke plastic "Fire Plug sets.. they were indestructible short of being eaten by a dog or some other such fate. The closest I've come to that "pressed down" look aesthetic of the pawn you reference above I found in the HOS "Collector Series" which, I must confess, I bought one of, exactly for that reason... I really could not afford it at that time , but Oh it was such a STEAL back in 2009 -- and I was able to put the thing on lay away -- and Oh I do so love that set, precisely because it has those W-I-D-E  bases, which make the pieces harder to accidentally knock over especially with the added weights, giving the set a rather low Center of Gravity. There are far too many sets that are overly TALL but have bases that are far to narrow giving the set a rather HIGH Center of Gravity.  When you have Parkinson's you *want* something that is hard to knock over.

The above is not true at all.

I have two in like new condition. There are plenty vintage Drueke sets in America. BTW when are you going t change your flag to the your country Great Britain. 

Mike, he won't answer you.  He's a troll.

He reminds me of the Joe Isuzu commercials.