Balkan Crusader: Wooden Dubro with Kings' Crosses

One of the defining characteristic of the Dubrovnik pieces is their secularity--no cuts in the bishops' miters, and no crosses on the kings' crowns. As denizens of this forum well know, the Dubro was designed under commission from the Yugoslavian government for use in the 1950 Olympiad held in Dubrovnik. What is not so well known is that the original design sketches showed two alternate designs. One with the ball on the king's crown we are all familiar with, but the other with a cross. Tito's communist government rejected the cross for its religious connotations, but it lives on as an alternate interpretation of the design, as evidenced by the recent forum on plastic Dubros with crosses. For several years, now, I have owned a wooden Dubro with kings' crosses. It's a plain set, no where near the quality of the historically accurate NOJ reproductions, or those by House of Staunton or ChessBazaar. The wood set looks to be maple and stained maple. The kings are about 3.5" tall, and the set is fairly well weighted for its size.

While no where near as well-carved as the NOJ Dubro-2, the knights from this set do a good job of capturing the cartoonish whimsy of the 1960 redesign.

Here we can compare these knights to NOJ's 1950 reproduction on the left, and NOJ's 1960 reproduction on the right.

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the photos and the history lesson.  I didn't know there was an alternate design, but I do now.

Best, Bob

Thanks Chuck for the nice review of your Dubrovnik wood set with Kings having a cross. Even though this set is of lesser quality then other Dubrovniks offered, the set still has a lot of charm, especially those cartoonish knights.