Differences between the 3 official Dubrovnik sets?

What are the differences between the original Dubrovnik designed by Pero Poček (1949), the Dubrovnik II designed by Andrija Maurović (1960), and the Dubrovnik III created for the 19th Chess Olympiad (1970)?

From what I can read, the Dubrovnik II often had finials of the opposite color on the king and queen rather than the bishops, but I’m not finding examples of this. Below is an original set from 1960 (the image used to be on the House of Staunton website; I upscaled the image with AI and isolated the pieces from the background).

Below is a Staunton Castle reproduction of the original Dubrovnik. I don’t know how authentic this is, but the knight is considerably different. The crown of the queen also seems to be sharper, and the finial is smaller.

The Dubrovnik III is said to have a more refined knight and a more streamlined appearance of the pieces, resulting in a sleeker aesthetic. But I’m not finding examples of this; reproductions look virtually the same to me apart from the knight (see the Staunton Castle reproduction below). I guess the rim below the head of the pawn is more refined. Beyond that, the pieces look fairly close to the 1960 version with a more squarish mitre on the bishop, and a less sharp crown on the queen. So this makes sense in terms of a gradual evolution of the design. The knight looks more angular, and this time the head is larger than the neck/body, so the proportions seem to have reversed compared to the previous two designs.

Does anyone have good photos of the original sets from 1950 and 1970 so I can compare them to the 1960 version, and get a sense of how authentic the reproductions are?

Izmet and Noj’s website have photos of a set from the IX Olympiad.

A few differences between Pocek and Maurovic design are the cuts in the queen’s crown and yhe Maurovic pieces are a little more robust, rounded and thicker.

minor variations IMO. There is a video where somone discusses the origin of the Dubrovnik knight from Vienna coffee house designs (compared to Selena’s horse of Nathaniel Cooke’s design. The video goes into detail proportions and alignment of nose and tail of the knight. No reproduction has been able to match this aspect of the knight.

This is very useful, thank you!

Oh wow, I had no idea the knight originates from Vienna coffeehouse sets! What does Selena’s horse refer to? Is that the name of the Jaques knight?

Selene’s horse is from the Elgin marbles used by Nathaniel Cooke.

Ah right! I’ve heard it referred to as the Elgin Marble knight.

I've never seen the different color finnials with the king and queen in any of the Dubrovnik's but I'm not an expert in Dubrovnik, I'm just basing it on what I've read and the videos I've seen from others. To me, there are 3 main differences between the 3 versions, the knight, queen and rook. I agree with your assessment on the knight so I'll move on to the queen. I read somewhere that the queen in the 1950 version has 11 or 13 cuts on the crown whereas the 1960 version only has 5...it looks like the 1970 version only has 5 too. As far as the rooks go, the 1950 version is more straight in the body compared to the 1960 version which looks a little tapered going up, which is the same for the 1970 version. Personally, I like the 1960 and 1950 version but if I had to choose I'd go with 1950 and Staunton castle has a good version of it, as well as royal chess mall. Just my 2 cents 🙂