Do you know a similar set?

I bought recently this set in Brazil, but it is probably European. Do you know this or a similar set? I am a collector since many years, but I don't have anything similar to it. The knights are beautiful, the rooks have an unique shape. The whole set is in almost perfect condition.

I just checked with my books and didn't find a similar set.

It looks to me like the knight is a modern rendition of the Regency design.

This is what chess-museum.com says about the desing, and in said case it will make sense that you found it on Brazil;

"Preeminent style in chess pieces, probably dating back to the 18th C, and associated with a French Regency period (the days of Richelieu and Mazarin). This style was also adopted in several other countries, and still is alife in third world manufacturies - and in Spain! Usually not felted, nor weighted - with two-piece knights!"

http://www.chess-museum.com/regency-chess-sets.html

 

The other pieces are definitely more staunton than regency... though regency kind of have those steam things that you see in the king and the queen. And so the skinny pawn...

 

I would say it is a modern mixture of staunton and regency.

that is a very interesting set... did the seller have any history about the set?

How tall is the king? 

Thanks. The set is not Brazilian, but European. I have uncountable Regency sets, but they all differ significantly from this set. I would say that they differ significantly from Staunton, for example the rooks and bishops.

 

The previous owner bought it in Europe, perhaps France in 1950. I think though that the set is significantly older. I estimate the king as 6 or 7 centimetres. I have already cleared them.

Hi Torrubirubi,

I have been restoring chess sets for over 30 years and whilst I don't recall a set exactly like the one you show the knights heads do look like some German sets although the pawns have some resemblance to French sets.

Jon Crumiller or Prof Sir Alan Fersht may like to see it.

Dating is more of a problem. If the set was made on a pole lathe (Check to see the parting off lines underneath the pieces, if it was pole lathe made it will have little groups of lines as the lathe ran to and fro. This is not likely as even before power lathes there were water and  great wheel power lathes turned by an apprentice).

There are online old catalogs from chess sales in London (mostly) with lots of sets in them but the auctioneers knowledge is sketchy and often incorrect. 

Thomas Thompson in Germany may have more info on this. If you PM me I will look for his email address. You could put a call out to any CCI (chess collectors international) members who are still alive ()

Great, thanks for the information! I will come back to you soon (I have to take the set from the place where it is stored). Cheers

I bought today a wonderful book on a museum in Austria with a lot of information on chess sets and boards. I will study it to see if I can find something similar to my set.

Dear chessspy, yesterday I was planing to take the set and examine the lines underneath the pieces. I ended taking all my sets and clocks out from the wardrobe (yes, all my sets are in wardrobes, as I don't have space to display more than one or two sets). The stuff is now in the living room's floor. I "rediscover" some wonderful sets that I almost forgot that I have, like a 18th C Regency set, an incomplete but outstanding Selenus, some German Barleycorn sets, several Uhlig and Staunton bones, and several others.

I am planing since long to make good pictures of all them and make a website. I like to show variations of a type, like Wiener Kaffehaus-sets or Regency. The problem is the time. I have to invest some days to make the pictures and to load them in a website.

But what is the reason to have a collection if not to share it to other people, to discuss them, to identify them, to compare with sets from other collections?

And slowly I have to think to reduce the collection. For example, I have too many similar Regency-sets. I have also several Bundesform-sets, but actually I need only one. And I should do something with all the Stauntons that are not adding much to the collection. It is therefore well possible that I will sell them, perhaps on Ebay or in a flea market in Switzerland.

The same with books. I have now books full of doublets, most of them from a private library I took over some days ago. Most books in German, several quite interesting. Several of them I will use for prices in the tournaments I regularly organise for my students, or as cool gifts for chess colleagues.

About the unknown set: no lines underneath the pieces. The pawns are not all identical, since they have some variation in the size, which is not rare in old sets.

This is still one of my best chess sets. Did somebody in the meantime find a similar set somewhere? I still didn't find anything about it.