Reproduction and Real Jaques of London Chess Set

strngdrvnthng, andy277:

I hope I didn't sound fighting with you guys. I didn't intend to be, just exchanging ideas.

Andy, this piece of information is quite interesting.

Sorry admin for hijacking the thread on trivial talks. Let's go back to Jaques. Since I don't have much to offer here, I will follow this thread and ocassionally pepper you with questions, if you are Okay. Please bear with me. Hope this thread turns out to be a fascinating one where we discuss interesting concepts related to chess sets.

No worries mirasma. 

So, I spoke with Vikram from Chess Bazaar today and he relayed to me two very important points concerning the 1849 sets offered there.

1. The current and future batches all have lead weights.

2. The next batch will have King side stamping on the Rook and Knight pieces.

Additionally, I have corresponded with Alan Dewey and he is saying they are working on getting the weight just right.  The original Jaques sets could vary in weight from set to set due to different heights of the lead weights.  I am hoping they will lean towards the heavier side of the average.

And, I discovered photos on Alan Dewey's picasa account of the first prototypes.  Keep in mind these represented the first effort, and revisions/upgrades are forthcoming. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/116152809472643080958/PROTOTYPE1849ANDBOX?noredirect=1#

I guess this is what Chessbazaar is doing. Honestly, I don't like the base thickness. It is as if they have the same kind of bases for every set and then they tweak the rest of the body. In earlier photos that you posted here, the bases are much more elegant and narrow. If they rectify it, I will save up and buy. Otherwise I don't see any point really. And stamping and all are bogus add on to me (since they are not original Jaques to start with). I hope they have a set without stamping gimmick with a lower price.

The King side Rook and Knight stamping is something all the old firms did.  It was used in the type of chess notation used before the current system to differentiate the the two pieces. 

I don't think Chess Bazaar will be adding any kind of stamping around the base, although I wouldn't mind it if they did as long as it said something other than J. Jaques London.

I agree about the bases.  They are not wide enough in relation to the stem
compared to the real thing, and the turning is not well defined enough.  Also, worth mentioning on this thread is this set from Chess Bazaar:

http://www.chessbazaar.com/the-staunton-series-triple-weighted-wooden-chess-pieces-4-33-in-ebony-box-wood-4-4-king.html

This set is not listed as a reproduction of anything, but it is very similar to older Jaques sets.  And quite a bit cheaper too.

I can't see any difference between the bases of the original CB Jaques and the one shown on Alan Dewey's site. Actually, all the pieces look the same to me (perhaps they're the "before" pieces). And I don't get what's bogus or a gimmick about crown stamping. It's still useful if you consult old books with descriptive notation and it also appeals to some people (like me) as a historical nicety. Neither of those depends on a set being an original Jaques. Regardless, I don't imagine that you'll save much, if anything, if you ask for a set without the stamping.

I would have said it's more like the later sets rather than the older ones. But even then it's not that close.

PS. It's listed as 110mm or 4.4 inches. But 110mm is not 4.4 inches; it's 4.3.

andy277: I understand your feelings. I am devoit of any such scrutiny on a replica set. But that's me.

Jack_Burton: The dealbreaker here is the knight. Just check out the other sets in that category. You will be surprised to find that the knight is more or less common in every set. I love chessbazaar and frankly that's the only option I have for a decent chess set. Rest of the sites are prohibitevely costly and sadly CB is walking that way. They have jacked up the Indian prices for most sets and they are beyond me now. But I have three sets with them and in two, the knights are identical in design. The third one is a tajmahal design, hence the knights are different (and better). I Jaques sets that you have posted here, the mane of the knights are finer and thus look more elegant. And of course, I would prefer my knight to be a bit leaner.

Maybe getting into the footnotes here, but I still think it is worth mentioning the Zukert chess set from The Chess Store.

http://www.thechessstore.com/#!product/PSZSBC/Zukert-Series-Plastic-Chess-Set-in-Black-Camel-4-25-King

This set is only "inspired by" a famous Jaques set.  But it's fairly large compared to most plastic sets at 4.25", and it is finely made according to reviews I've seen here and there.  For $60 it can give a taste of playing with a real club sized chess set.  And good for taking on the road!

Another thing to note is this set is available in white and red, a color combo used on the original copyright documents for Jaques and Nathaniel Cooke.  Red actually appears more often on the surviving page than the black pieces.

See here courtesy of Rick from ancientchess.com and Gareth Wiliams great book Masterpieces.

Just something to think about.

I have to say though, why stop so close to the 4.4" mark and not just go ahead and make a reproduction?  Are they afraid of impinging on the sales of the more expensive wooden repros?

The red and white sets in the design documents would be the ones made of ivory.

Yes, and the ivory sets usually have some fairly significant differrences from the wooden.  And they were never weighted.

From crumiller.com

A nice hard plastic, resin, or perhaps bone could try to replicate the look and feel of these sets. 

I don't really know where they fell in terms of commonality back in the old days.  Were they played with?  Or just to look at?  How many were made?

In many cases I think they don't look as good as the wooden sets.

My opinion as well.

Apart from collection purposes, I can see three kinds of chess boards:

• small ones for travel. Usually crappy, two-dimensional and magnetic, and rather cheap, since you expect to lose some pieces.
• basic ones for club/tournament/regular play. Beauty is not very important, but playability is, so you end up with semi-cheap plastic and possibly a plastic sheet instead of a board.
• nice ones, for the eyes' pleasure (yours or your friends') - expensive wooden pieces with a board. Even if you will not play it often you want it to be enjoyable when you do, so careful weighting etc.

To my eyes, nice plastic sets have both the inconvenient of the third option (not cheap) and of the second option (not as nice to look/touch as wooden ones).

(I never touched an ivory set in my life, so I canot tell)

I just recently bought the Zukert set that Jack_Burton mentioned above. I am planning on posting a detailed review with pics this next week. But, I will say that the set is GREAT. It is my first set, and I really toyed with what to buy, but the pieces are very heavy, with a nice non-shiny finish. It will be a great set to play with daily.

One company has made a resin set based on a Jaques ivory set, and it looks quite realistic.

I've not handled an ivory set but I do like the look of them and the red and white contrast. I would love to own one some day, though I don't like the idea that an elephant probably died to provide the raw material.

andy277 I was about to post that set in my upcoming 3.5" edition post!

Overall it is a laughably bad "reproduction".  I have yet to find a set on Jon Crumiller or Alan Fersht's site that looks anything like it, and it is only 3.25" tall.  For $70 I guess it isn't too bad, but there are others like the Zukert above that are actually closer in shape to the original pieces.  I will say that the antiqued ivory appearance is pretty decent (at least from the photo).

It's strange to me that there is no good plastic reproduction of the 4.4" sets.  It's a hole in the market. I do not agree with IronTiger's assessment that plastic sets can not be as nice to touch or look at as wood.  Solid core plastic chess pieces with heavy weights should be very nice, and could definitely fill for Ivory at a fraction of the price.  I wouldn't hesitate to buy a 1850 Ivory Repro with high quality plastic even up to $100. 

Such wonderful plastic sets!

I agree that it doesn't look like a typical Jaques set (it looks to me more like a Cantonese Staunton like this one), but they do claim it is a copy of an 1851 Jaques, so who's to know? I like the fact that they gave it a patina, but I just now looked at the close-up shots at HoS and was surprised and disappointed to see that the red bishops' mitre cuts are not proper cuts (it looks like the resin filled in the gaps).

I'm not a fan of plastic and I can't imagine preferring it over wood or even finding a plastic set that felt or looked as nice as wood. It just doesn't have that charm for me.

That was my thought as well. Definitely not based on an 1851 Jaques, though.

Well if it does have some provenance as a reproduction of something that makes it quite a bit more interesting.

The Dubrovnik pattern is very nice, but it has its own threads on this board.  It is enough of a divergence from the Staunton pattern that I can't give it the same name.  It's just another kind of Chess set. One that is only distantly related to the Jaques sets at hand here.