Why Is the Rook so Short?

Perhaps he just has a cash flow problem?

Maybe it's only a sand castle

It's about time you got here. Yes, my opening post makes that argument. However, a piece 30 times larger than the other pieces could make the game rather awkward to play. The board would have to be 30 times larger and your opponent might not be willing to help you move your huge rook - especially if you intend to take his knight with it.  

So the rook isn't just short - it's also short of cash, huh?

Actually, that looks more like a bishop than a rook.

You spoke too soon.  

Well, perhaps a practical way forward would be to put the rooks on casters and in the case of over the board chess, have some arrangement whereby the whole club gets to practice some tug of war training when a player signifies he wishes to move this piece. I could see rook and pawn endgames ending even more often in a draw as more elderly players have heart attacks in this scenario  - BUT THE IMPORTANT thing is we must try and represent things to scale !

Someone posted this many pages back. Apparently it is an actual set with taller rooks. I don't like the tall rooks. They look weird.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. "Bloggs, you created this thread to complain that the rooks are too short but you don't like tall ones?" Right. However, that was only my stated reason for creating this thread. My actual reason was to create a parody of stupid forum topics.

I can mate in one with my rook. I ask my opponent for assistance.

"Hey, would you mind giving me a hand? I want to move my rook to e8."

"But that would be mate."

"Right."

"Forget it, buddy; you're on your own."

"Okay, how about a draw then?"

"No thanks. I figure you'll lose on time before you get the rook halfway to e8"

Hi Fred,

I was away last week in Brass town fixing some spinning wheels (very nice spinning wheels, I can show pics if you are interested).

But I am back,

The Butrint object may not be a chess piece, and perhaps not 5th c. The problem is that the 'Christian' cross was not introduced into chess piece design until about the 15th c. Also, it is not clear what purpose the crenelations have? Are they the base of this object? If not how else could it be used? 

I made several copies of this object, it is by no means a trivial thing to make.

The Muslim style pieces I used in one of the above posts are probably intended for playing a race type game rather than chess but it is difficult to say definitely.

So the questions about heights of rooks (for example) in relation to other chess pieces are not as simple, facile or easy to answer as some of the correspondents on these pages would suggest. 

Welcome back. Yeah, post the pictures. I figured Brasstown is in NC but I googled to verify.  

The set pictured is by the British Chess Co. They only made sets for about 15 years, around the end of the 19thc. The knight is in Zylonite, an early plastic. The BCC co changed designs fairly frequently and the 'tall' rook design was only one of them.

Pictures of spinning wheel as promised. Here the flyer

@chessspy1:  Very cool!

maybe the rook is a mini model of the castles since the castles will be too hard for the king to carry

 Hi Bala,

I see you say you like to read. Here is something you might like and will inform you about the design and reasons for the sizes and shapes of chess pieces in general.

www.chessspy.com/articles/Staunton%20Chess%20Set%20Design.pdf

www.chessspy.com/articles/Icons%20and%20Staunton.pdf

This article takes a look at the manufacturing methods of the 19th c with regard to bone sets of the period

www.chessspy.com/articles/Persistence%20of%20Craft.pdf