Knight without a head

Hello!

Sorry can't do photos but I've spotted this very unusual old wooden miniature staunton style chess set (the King is only 4cm!) with Knights that are not carved but just like a stump. They are not damaged this is the way the Knights are supposed to look.

It's not a travel set with pegs at the bottom if that's any help.

I've seen this type of Knight/set somewhere before but can't remember where and trying to Google is difficult as can't think of the right words to describe it in the search box to find it!

From my limited description does anyone know anything about this set?

Thanks.

QC - if you connect from a PC you'll be able to attach pics

Hi, no they are not St George or sawn pieces. It's just like it's been done that way because it's a miniature set.

Matt, my laptop takes hours to load as it's so old but I'll see if I can do it from my tablet instead.

Just checked again and it is a St George set.

Only way I could do it was to take a photo. Hope this works.

As you can see the Knights have no head but it doesn't look like they've been chopped off.

The St. George style is not considered a Staunton style set. It is its own style. All Staunton style variations use horse heads (and sometimes more) for knights. Kings always have crosses, queens always have coronets.

I once made the mistake of calling the Dubrovnik style a Staunton set. It is very close to a Staunton style but is missing some of the required features.

Possibly I'm wrong (and am about to be educated! ;-) but I wouldn't think of this set as a "Staunton style".

In any case, looking closely at the photo of the white pieces it looks like one pawn is damaged, no two of them match, and one pawn has almost no (upper?) collar.  If you love it, great.  Otherwise...hard pass.

The 'staunton' description is from the Seller. I was half asleep this morning (late night 🥳) and my brain has only just woken up!

I'm more interested in the origins of it than buying it as I've never seen a Knight like that before.

It looks like a decent enough set but I'd be leery of buying a set from a seller that doesn't know what they're selling.

Here's a link to a page with short descriptions of other styles common before the Staunton style became the standard. https://www.stauntonchesssets.com/pre_designs.html

Here's their take on the St. George: "The St George design was named after a London chess club and manufactured in England by Jaques of London. It was universally popular until around 1850 when the Staunton design replaced it. The St George design was essentially a beautiful example of fine wood turning with some very nice carving."

That's really interesting thankyou 😊

I think I've found something very similar.

Slopecut.

http://www.chess-museum.com/st-george-chessmen.html

Wow the spelling mistakes though in that article!

Thanks QC - as you say, these are "slope-cut" knights. I wasn't aware of these.

I wonder if they're meant to look like the knight, rather than his horse.

Typos too! Almost looks like his cat walked over the keyboard while he was trying that.

Oh yes I see what you mean yes they could be more based on the Knight. Never thought of that way.

I knew those knights reminded me of something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U