Stamping "JAQUES" on Indian repro..could you tell apart?

This is a hypothetical scenario:

If someone stamped "JAQUES LONDON" on an Indian reproduction, would you be able to tell right away?

The many antique finished sets sold now would make it very tempting to try. On top of that, Jaques of today uses Indian suppliers where it would be easy to purchase a similar looking copy (even from the current manufacturer!) and make necessary changes such as matching the felts of the official ones.

Has one cropped up on Ebay before?

Yes and no. Vintage Jaques sets were made with European Boxwood (Buxus Sempervirens) as opposed to Indian Boxwood (Gardenia Latifolia). These woods age differently and Buxus is a fair bit harder. Jaques sets were finished with a form of shellac (like french polish) whereas Indian sets seem to use polishing wheels/compounds to get their shine. The shellac will last much longer than the polish as seen in many 150+ year old sets. The Jaques sets also had their weights screwed into the base, leaving three gouges in the bottom of the weight, which could be confirmed just by lifting the baize. Jaques sets used pure wool baize as opposed to felt. Many older Jaques knights had less angular gouges, more rounded, smooth bodies than the current repros. However, if an Indian manufacturer actually set out to copy, exactly, an antique Jaques set and used the "correct" materials etc.? Hmm...good question. Of course doing so would probably be fraud if you tried to sell it as a Jaques set.

I appreciate your response @Audioq,  Many of the reproductions out there always look like approximations to me (particularly the knights as you have described) rather than true replicas, despite the many images, photographs and information now available of the originals. Using shellac, pure baize and screw in weights would be a good start in passing one off. I guess a trained eye or collector would spot a fake right away. 

There appears to be another thread replying to this topic by a certain poster. He/she/it has blocked me previously and I have blocked him/her/it in return.

The statement "all Indian companies will stamp Jacques-style sets with their OWN stamps" is simply not true in all cases. I have a CB and RCM Jaques style set with no stamping whatsoever. One can even request a custom set without any markings from the Indian manufacturer and they will happily oblige.

If I was to spend $2000 on a vintage Jaques set I would definitely leave the authenticating to the professionals. I'll pay a premium and purchase it from Frank Cammarata's chess antique site for a big purchase like that. I like to sleep at night. 

@Audioq Some further thoughts:

Jaques reproductions will probably get better and more accurate with time. The better ones are obviously from Camaratta but those sets are stamped with his name.

As you have said, you can tell Indian boxwood from the European kind but not everyone will be aware of the correct materials involved. The weights would be an issue since these do not have to be shown when selling. If one can buy an unmarked set of the better reproductions out there, they can remove the modern finish, apply shellac and switch to pure baize. Wait a few decades and now some of the non-antiqued sets will have an antique patina of their own. They could make a killing online in 50 years time before being caught. Again, this is all hypothetical.

bubbles_the_cat   You do know Jaques still makes and sells pieces under their name, but are made in India. In fact, they have been made in India for decades.  It was a matter of economics. So in fact you can own a genuine Jaques chess set that is made in India. Of course, back in the days, they were all made in England and out of English Boxwood which is even more yellowish than what they use in India. You get the yellow without the varnish.

I am sure there are Jaques historians on here that can tell you the exact year they moved production to India.  

Don't forget that in the case of the more expensive Jaques antique sets, they would need to replicate a mahogany box and time correct label as well. Given how expensive solid mahogany (as opposed to veneer) is they may not make that much money on it.

Slightly less dodgy would be stamping a crown symbol on one Rook and one Knight of each colour. If you were selling a high-ish quality antique set from an unknown maker (which is most antique sets) having the crown marks will increase the price you get significantly IMO.

Even that would be borderline fraud IMO. I'd expect someone to be doing it, but I haven't seen anything suspicious yet.

I recall seeing in a thread long ago here that an antique dealer had got hold of a set of the Jaques stamps, so it would be perfectly possible to upgrade a non-stamped, non-Jaques antique set.  The registered design labels would be trivial to fake, that thread mentioned those too I think.  For making from scratch, European box is still available but expensive, and there was a thread on accelerating the ageing of timber on here too.  It doesn't seem that hard to fake them, but for only two or three thousand dollars in the general case (not a huge multiple of retail on the reproductions) its not really worth a lot of effort.  Faking the numbered sets would have a better ROI but there'd be a limit to how many you could do before people got suspicious.  

Scammers are in the business of making fast illegal money. As others have stated, it takes a lot of time and research to carve an exact replica of a Jaques set with the intent of lying and scamming someone. Using correct wood, finishing, aging, the box, felt, brittle paper labels, etc. The fast illegal money just isn't there. 

They are much better served making money by pumping out 80% accurate repros than meticulous 99% replicas that would take 10x as long to make.

It surprises me that there aren't 3d scans laying about of early Jaques pieces, so much of the angst here is about 100% accurate reproductions of old hand carved objects.  It would be interesting to see how far you could get with a CNC carving setup. 

The answer to your original question is, YES. It would be very easy to spot a modern repro passed off as an antique Jaques set. The modern repros don't even come close to 19th century Jaques sets. The repro knights are terrible and they always get the queen's crown wrong, too. You can tell them apart a mile off.

Interesting. I generally agree, eventhough I wouldn´t be as critical. Also, would you say the same thing about Official Stauntons 1850 Reproduction?

A repro is still a repro  Uchebuike No matter how much you want to pay for it . A Real set would have it's look + feel + hard knocks 165 year + in the making !

Sure, but taking everything except for the patina and 165+ year old dings as well as maybe the concrete weighting mechanism (in case the pieces are weighted) away (I assumed it was about comparing new original vs. new repro), what kind of difference is left?

I would love to get my hands on an original set, maybe I’ll be enlightened then, but until that happens, at least I personally don’t see a difference…

If everything I excluded above taken in to consideration I absolutely agree that one can most likely tell a difference, at least with a little knowledge.

Edit: just noticed that AudioQ above had already said, and said more throroughly, what I say below about shellac and timber.

Not a lot of difference. Made from different wood, I don't beleive that the indian sets use European box, I believe they use a local timber. The old Jaques sets are often described as having been french polished, which I am a little sceptical of, french polishing is fairly labour intensive process, but they do have a shellac finish where modern reproductions are waxed, which is a less durable but far easier finish to apply. There is an intermediate form between the originals and the reproductions that meets the demand for old sets that look like reproductions. These are old sets that are butchered in the name of restoration, sanded and refinished they often end up with the knights' bodies being different colours and textures to the rest of the set because sanding on a lathe is easy and sanding a knight is hard. The design is not particularly robust, those flared bases, collars, spikes and crowns are all fragile in one way or another and its my personal suspicion that the shapes became less flared, less detailed, over time to make them less prone to cracking and chipping. You have to expect some degree of damage on an un-"restored" set unless it was bought and put away and hardly touched.

I must ask does the message you wrote mean anything about the thread?

Reported for spamming this wonderful thread.

it's seem that the the ivory JAQUES sets have weathered better over time than the wooden ones . As AD pointed out years ago most old wooden JAQUES set's are in need of repair , in some form .