St. George Styled Sets?

Hey Guys,

We have many collectors here and most are tournament players as well. (I am not.) I've seen many different sets from many different countries, all of the Staunton style.

Does anyone have a St. George patterned set? I was watching a video by Alan Dewey and it piqued my interest.

If you do, could you please post pics? Thanks!

I made a page about them in my chess collection site several years back: http://www.tykroll.com/chess/stgeorge.html 

This pic is no longer linked to my pages as I think the set is not great. It is your pretty standard, common SG set:

Here is a nicer one in ebony which I was using as the main example of the design in my collection

Here is a travel set in ivory (I don't have a Cites license for this; I got it before ivory regulation was so strict. Whether or not I could get one these days IDK. It's clearly more than 100 years old. It wasn't my goal at the time to collect ivory and I don't have many such sets.)

And here is a an Anglo-Chinese set in soapstone which I feel can fits the pattern, though it's not really a British set:

I haven't really been collecting or taking care of the site for years but I hope you like the pics.

and the pictures are broken... not sure how that happened. I copied the links right but the links that are there now are not the ones I pasted.

I visited the site, tmkroll. Thanks!

Is it a set that you play with? How does it feel?

The stone set feels bad; always afraid to drop it and chip it. The other sets are fine to play though not weighted like modern sets.

Here's a nice picture of a classic St. George set from Jon Crumiller's collection.

http://www.crumiller.com/chess/chess_pages/jonchess.htm

A website well worth perusing if you're a fan of antique chess sets. Jon has one of the finest collections around.

In the early ebay years, and before total restrictions on ivory, you could buy them if they were pre ban. I never really wanted to encourage the slaughter of more animals for ivory. So never bought one. Most always had a piece or so that was damaged, so you would have had to buy more than one set. They also were not cheap. Looking back on it now, I feel so sorry for the poor elephants that have died just because people wanted ivory.

Not all ivory came from elephants, but unfortunately most did. Such a waste of a magnificent creature.

I guess I started a tangent with the little ivory set. It should be said most Saint George style sets are wood. That set of Jon's is an execellent example, much better than any of mine that I posted. My good wood set has better than average turnings but the quality of the knight heads are a measure of the quality of the set.

Here is the most basic set which I no longer display in my collection: http://www.tykroll.com/chess/ebonizesg.html so you can see at least three levels of quality for this kind of set in wood here. It's not just the broken pieces and the ebonized boxwood, everything is super "blocky" and roughly carved. This is the kind of set you'll see most of often if you look for these on eBay. I don't dislike it but back when I cared about such things I didn't feel it was very collectible. The "anonyous" collector said as much here: http://anonymouschesscollector.blogspot.com/2007/06/advise-to-novice-ebayers.html 

Thanks, guys.

I have never been drawn to these sets and have always found them rather unattractive. They are chunky. On first sight my wife thought they were too busy. I wouldn't disagree with her. But seeing them move on the board and hearing the pieces land (albeit on a folding board), they gave off an impression of being assertive and bossy. Of course, it could just have been the hand that weilded the pieces. Anyway, I find the whole historical aspect interesting.

Its not your fault TMK, Even many that say they are ivory are in fact bone, most people are clueless. I also didn't mean to go off on a tangent, so apologies.

Recently acquired this St. George set. Boxwood and ebony. Kings stand slightly over 3.5". Here it is on a Drueke board with 1.75" squares. I think it will be perfect for my shatranj games.

Not everyone's cup of tea, for sure, but it's pretty good. Thanks!