Queen's Gambit Chess Set Harmon vs. Borgov

Ah yes, I recognize the 1954 knight from a recent article I read, called ‘The Gulag Knight of Mordovska (Addendum)’. Unfortunately the article is currently not accessible for some reason. But it showed how the knight evolved from 1950 to 1954, losing its detail and acquiring a thicker muzzle. Interesting to see the rook losing its segmented top, as Tarkinz stated.

Here is my 1952 set for reference. I’m not noticing any other changes.

Oh I did see the knight with less detail in an article on how the “Gulag knight” evolved from 1950 to 1954. I had no idea the rook also lost detail. It seems this process of abstraction already took place in the mid ’50s then.

Awesome, that's good to know! I wonder if it had to do with production?

Beautiful sets being posted BTW!

Here’s a

The article is up again! Yes, it does seem associated with the production process. Alan Power writes:

“The sleek design of the classic 1953 knight is particularly attractive, and in various guises gallops on well into the 1980s. The Soviet Combines had this annoying habit of achieving perfection and then slowly destroying it via means of over-simplification to ramp up production […]”

So it seems I got the timeline wrong; I think it’s implied that the simplification may indeed have taken place in the ’80s. The article shows some fascinating illustrations of how the knight evolved over the years:

In the early ’40s, the knights are vaguely reminiscent of the Botvinnik–Flohr knights. In the later ’40s, it seems the head becomes more prominent than the neck or “belly”.

In the ’50s, I don’t see much of a change, except maybe a rounder body and shorter ears. Maybe more angular manes as well.

In the late ’50s I guess we start seeing some of that abstraction, where the manes are no longer distinct shapes, but are suggested by a few straight lines. Interesting to see the head sort of fluctuate in its design, from an Egyptian demigod in 1958, to a much more angular wolf-like head in the 1960s, and then making a return to the straight muzzle (although thicker than in the ’50s). None of these look like horseheads to me, however. Though to be fair, the Gulag knight was never particularly horse-like. The one from the early ’40s where it had more of a Botvinnik–Flohr flair looked most like a horse to me.

That's a great timeline for the evolution of this knight style.

Ok you brought up gulags and it got me thinking, I had heard that some of these sets were made in gulags. is there any truth to that?

Yeah, it seems they were—hence the name Gulag knight. The article is quite fascinating:

THE GULAG ‘KNIGHT’ OF MORDOVIA (ADDENDUM)

One thing I forgot to mention is that the great amount of variability seen in the knights is likely due to the different sections of the camp specializing in different patterns. I think this makes sense with the fact that we don’t see a very clear evolution per se in the illustrations above; some of the features more or less fluctuate. I guess this is highly speculative, but it makes me wonder whether these designs came about more or less naturally rather than someone controlling the process with an intentful evolution.

“A theory reinforced by a Dubravlag official document recently unearthed by the collector and historian, Sergey Kovalenko, which plainly states that “Promkombinat Gulags Nos. 4, 5, 7 & 11” were “woodworking and furniture” plants that spanned the entire spine of Dubravlag. A theory that could also explain why there are so many Moldovian variations [sic]; as different carpentry brigades in different sections of the camp may have specialized in differing patterns – but that’s a subject too vast for this chronology.”