Time for Ganine

Here are my Ganine sets, along with a beautiful Alabaster board for the red and black Salon edition.

I also have an original version Tournament edition, with the castellated King and Queen. 

Bruce

Beautiful sets, Sir! It's interesting how the pieces changed after the original 1947 design - only the bishop survived a haircut! I'm guessing that was for mass-production reasons.

I think the rook in your set is different from my 1947 set - I'll have to dig it out and check.

Yes, the rook shown in my Tournament edition is the revised design, not the original. I just prefer the revised design of the rook, which is not the case for the other pieces. 
I agree that the reason for the changes is probably to adapt to production requirements. I say this because the scalloped crowns of the King and Queen seem liable to chipping. One of mine has a tiny chip in the crown and I’ve seen this problem with other Tournament editions.
Both the original and revised rook designs are shown below. Original is on the left. Don’t know why the image appears upside down.
Ganine trivia: Did you know that Peter Ganine designed the original floating yellow rubber ducky that is used in various floating competitions all over?

Speaking of chipping, I have a number of sets (Salon and Tournament) with the "new" design king and queen which clearly have fallen over multiple times - the crown edges are definitely chipped. I always thought that the original 1947 design would be more resistant to chipping but who knows the intent of the change?

After literally *years* of searching almost daily, I finally found an original Peter Ganine red and black tournament edition chess set. This, I’m pretty sure, is actually one of the rarest of all Ganine Gothic-style sets - even rarer than his MCM modern Star Trek sets, which can be found online periodically. This is the *only* large (tournament) size red and black set I’ve ever seen and it’s in great condition. I have seen Tournament edition reds before, but only twice and they were paired with white. Red with black is way cooler!
Check it out:

Bruce

Hahaha, I guess I should get motivated and post some photos of my original, original red/black Tournament set! Yours look great!

A much better photo on a much nicer board.

I am a little late to this post but I hope that sharing details of my set will help with further identification and dating. I have what appears to be a very early Peter Ganine "Gothic"set with the scalloped crowns on the kings and queens. The pieces are unweighted but made of a heavy and dense resin/plastic, possibly Bakelite or Melamine. There are almost no visible mold parting lines on the pieces, with the exception of the knights near the curved crests of their helmets. The white king measures 4 3/8" and weighs 3.96 oz. On average, the white pieces are 7%-9% heavier than their black counterparts. The white pieces are felted white, the black pieces felted black. The wooden case has a padded lid and a molded and flocked plaster of Paris base. The case weighs an impractical 7.1 lbs empty, making it unlikely that this set was intended for retail sale. The pieces are simply stamped ©️Ganine, where Ganine is the actual artist's signature and not the stylized cursive of later production sets that had the date of manufacture and USA written on them.

I do love to see these original, original (1947, I believe) versions! Thanks for posting!

Nice set, SoCalJL ! I think what you have is one of the very few prototype sets that were made before the sets were sold commercially. You may still be able to find the record of another similar Ganine prototype if you search Worthpoint for “Ganine Prototype”.

BTW, there are additional Ganine “relics” out there, including a few rare Ganine chess lamps. Below is the Knight light (sorry!) behind one of Ganine’s rare Tournament Edition red sets.

It's always thrilling to see the earliest work! How did you come across yours? I was lucky to find a 1947 red/black version on eBay for $80! I've lost a couple of auctions since then for other 1947 sets but the hunt continues for a white/black at a price that won't trigger marital strife...some day...Some Fine Day!

Basically, you just obsessively keep checking ebay. You have to be very persistent.

The reds are extremely rare, especially in the large tournament editions. The original versions of those have the scalloped crowns and are also pretty rare. Revised versions with simplified crowns are a little more common but still hard to find. The smaller salon editions are common in black and white. There are also really ugly “marbelized” versions in the larger size, in black, brown and white.

Fortunately these sets wear very well, so when you finally find one, while the box may be in bad shape, the pieces are usually very good.

There are also Ganine statues (I’ll post a photo at some point), some of which are painted, and lamps which seem to be rarest of all.

Note that there are also many copies out there which can usually be recognized by the less distinct features and details as well as odd colors.

I’ve been putting this collection together since the pandemic, so that gives you an idea of how long it took to find these things.

Bruce

Hahaha, copy that on eBay! I've been doing that very thing for years (eBay and etsy) - it's likely we bid against each other somewhere along the way!

So you're not a fan of the marbled ones? I've seen a (very) few (both in black and white) that I thought came out nicely. Most of them, though, aren't that appealing to me either.

Every Ganine set I’ve seen on Etsy has been overpriced, but I did get a Ganine Knight statue on Etsy that was reasonably priced.

I’m probably done bidding on Ganine chess sets, so that’s one less bidding competitor you’ll have!

SoCalJL, I think your set may date from as early as 1939. Below is photo of a Life Magazine article from the January 29, 1940 issue. Look closely at the bottom right of the page and you’ll see a very early design Ganine set in ceramics. The caption reads, “ A modern American chess set, made in ceramics by Peter Ganine, is simple and dramatic. Each figure is easily distinguishable from the others. Ganine planned to reproduce the set for popular sale, in bakelite, but the war prevented it. This set is worth $200.” (1940)
I think *you* have one of the very few prototypes made from the design shown here and later sold postwar as the “Tournament Edition.” Don’t know why pictures keep getting rotated and cropped.