Some Chess Sets from a Humble Collection

I do have quite a few, but I don't have time to post pictures at the moment. Will catch up later!

Ok, I'd love to see them when you have the time. I have one set, I'll post some pics in a while too.

So, now to my favourite set! An Austrian, or Austro-Hungarian, or Old Vienna Coffee House set of chess men
I believe, due to this set's size, the King is 10.5cm high, that it was a club set. It has most of it's original paper felts, the Black King has suffered quite bad damage to one side, but not noticeable if you face him the right way! From the Chess Museum website I understand these sets were made by a Vienna based company called Nekvasil and were in common and wide spread usage through mittel Europe. The sets continued to be used in serious competition even after FIDE had ordained the Staunton pattern as the official style of chess men for competition. I love the honourably battered patina of serious use these chess men have! They are true warriors of the 64 squares.

Alright, here we go.

1) Austrian Biedermeier coffee house chess set, ca. 1820-1840. The pieces beautifully show the transition from 18th century sets to the emerging Biedermeier style. You still have some galleries on the kings and queens, but not as accentuated as in the earlier Selenus chess sets. Note also the caps of the bishops and the slender upright shape of the rooks on pedestals.

2) Austrian Biedermeier coffee house chess set, same period as before, i.e. ca. 1820-1840. The royal pieces again with galleries, but not as distinct as in the "crows nest" typical for Selenus pieces. The bishops with what sometimes is described as a lyre hat. I personally tend to describe the heads on these bishops rather as high hats with a feather, as they were common in the military of that time.

3) Austrian Coffee House Chess Set, ca. 1860-1880. The style is showing the transition from the earlier Biedermeier sets to the emerging Vienna coffee house style. The bishops still have a peculiar finial, but the other pieces already have the typical design features of the Vienna coffee house style, i.e. broad crowns on the kings and massive turrets as rooks.

4) Austrian coffee house chess set, 1882 - this set is interesting insofar as it can be dated to 1882, i.e. rather late in the 19th century, but at the same time it has some features of the former Biedermeier period (e.g. the feathers on the bishops hats). The kings' finials as well as the feathers on the bishops' hats are made of bone.

5) Vienna coffee house chess set, late 19th / early 20th century

6) Vienna coffee house chess set, late 19th / early 20th century

7) Vienna coffee house chess set, 20th century

8) Austrian Upright chess set, late 19th century - this one is not particularly a coffee house chess set, but it is a very unusual type of "Austrian Upright", comparable to the infamous Lasker-Schlechter-set. The style is reminiscent of the Czech style developed in the 1880's by Bohuslav Schnirch, but I will leave these sets for a later post perhaps.

Wow! Superb chess men and a real spread of all the different styles. Thanks for sharing the pics. I'm fascinated to know why the Lasker-Sclechter set was infamous!

"Infamous" is probably not the best word, but "famous" is definitely a worthy description. This is what NOJ Slovenia writes about the Lasker-Schlechter set:

"On January 7 of 1910, Emanuel Lasker set out to defend his title of World Champion in a match against the Austrian prodigy Carl Schlechter. The match was destined to run for 10 games, half of them to be played in Vienna, and the second half in Berlin. Club organizer, Georg Marco, ordered a special chess table with good chessmen from a reputable joinery Faludy or Kisfaludy - this is the famous Schlechter-Lasker chess set with table, which has survived two World Wars and provides the best known specimen of the Austrian Uprights."

There is a very instructive article by the late Nicholas Lanier on his chess-museum website, in which he is also showing pictures of the set.

Thanks for the info about the Nicholas Lanier article, it was fascinating, and more excellent pictures of chess men!  The Uprights design and history was particularly interesting, especially the potential Russian connection.

It made me think of the next set I wanted to share, coincidentally. It's a Soviet-era set, from Latvia. I believe it's from the 50's or 60's and there were several factories producing different styles of chess men in the Soviet Union and this style was manufactured in Riga, Latvia. They are pretty utilitarian in manufacture, but what struck me was the "upright" nature of design, as mentioned by Lanier in his article. Is this further evidence of the origin of this design? I think the chess men are broad based for stability as they aren't weighted. Interesting  n'est ce pas?

@fixbayonets - a Soviet connection of the Upright design is not very convincing in my view. And the Latvian set you were showing is not significantly more upright than other designs, at least not enough to assume any direct influence on the Austrian Upright design as seen in the Lasker-Schlechter set. One of the design features of the Lasker-Schlechter design in my view, apart from the tall column like stems, are the longitudinal grooves or undulations in the kings crown. These are indicated already in the Vienna coffee house design, if you compare for example the sets shown in my post above under no. 3, 5 and 6, but not as accentuated as in the Lasker-Schlechter set. There is only one set I know of from Tsarist Russia which has such accentuated grooves in the crown and which may have been influenced by this design (or vice versa), but apart from that I cannot see any connection. As it happens, this very special set with 4.25" kings, heavily weighted, is part of my collection.

However, in my opinion the pieces are not svelte enough to really assume that they served as an inspiration for the Upright design. This is different in the early Czech sets, which were based upon the design of Bohuslav Schirch. The do have kings crowns with indicated longitudinal grooves or undulations AND very slender, column-like stems. Taking into account that Bohemia was part of the Austrian Empire, I regard the Czech design as perhaps the closest link to the Austrian Uprights, if not to say I am convinced that there was a mutual influence on the respective design. Here is an example of what I mean, a late 19th century Bohemian weighted tournament set with a king size of 10.6 cm.

Once again, stunning pics of chess men!  I believe you have a point about the influence of the Bohemian style on the Austrian upright sets. I'm not, however, totally convinced that the Latvian style of Soviet-era chess men arose in the Soviet era, and may have had antecedents pre-dating the Soviet occupation of the Baltic republics in 1939. They differ quite a bit from the other Russian styles of the period. But that's pure speculation, I have no evidence!

I am not contesting that. It was only the Soviet connection to the Austrian Uprights that I cannot see.

I was following Lanier's train of thought/speculation in the article you referenced. He made a connection with a Russian style of chess set that bore similarities with the Uprights .

Yes, I know. But what do you make of it? Do you think there is a connection between the Austrian Uprights and Russian or Soviet pieces? I think this is highly speculative. The set he is referencing to does in my view not have any similarity with the Austrian Uprights other than it was made with very slim stems. But this alone does not make it a convincing theory for me. I also think that the potential Czech connection was too easily rejected (in fact only by reference to GM Karel Mokry, who simply said that these sets were not Czech made). I have the impression that for the time being it will remain a mystery.

Oh I think you're absolutely on the money with the Czech connection , just looking at the pic you posted  of the Czech chess men makes it pretty obvious they must have had an influence. Especially, as you say, Bohemia (Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia) being a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I was just struck by the lines of the Latvian set, but I think, on reflection , it's more about them remaining stable without weighting.

I can only speculate that the style of gameplay during that era was slow and deliberate in an intimate setting where the piece details only mattered to the two players. Those sets were not designed for rapid and blitz games for the viewing pleasure of a packed room/stage, with or without cameras or demo boards. 
That’s why thin pieces with wide bases worked regardless of the weight. 

I now present a Grossmeister set  from the Soviet era, of Russian manufacture. This set is quite small, the King measures 8cm, but usually they come much bigger than this, and weighted. I think this set dates to the 60's or 70's and was made in the Borodino factory in Moscow. I particularly like the pawns in this set and , although the standard of manufacture is basic, it's a pleasing set to handle and has a weight of history behind it. And, of course, they don't make these chess men anymore! The set would originally come with a folding box board, sadly missing here.

Nice bulky bases! Are they weighted? The bases are almost as in the Philippine Staunton sets.

Yes, not dissimilar. The chess men in the Grossmeister set aren't weighted, but in the larger sets they are.

I think the pawns look a lot like the ones in your Tsarist set.

This time I'm sharing a Soviet-era Russian, plastic, weighted set. This was an incredibly lucky find in a church jumble sale many years ago (2000-01?).








The chess set had never ben played with as the chess men were still wrapped in the tissue paper they'd left the factory in. Given that the folding box board is stamped with the factory stamp dated 1961 I was very pleased. Sadly, I made the mistake of loaning it to someone who returned it with the board scratched badly in several places, never again! The knights are almost two dimensional , as seen end on they're quite flat, a reflection of the basic manufacturing standards of the time and place. These sets were pretty ubiquitous throughout the Soviet Union, I've seen may photos of them in use. A classic of its kind.

I have seen these sets before and always thought that they look very attractive. Nice one!