The French Regency Set: A Mystery Revealed

I am excited by this find. It is from a deceased estate. One year on from purchasing a reproduction - I believe I know have an authentic set. I am not sure about the box - that may well be a mismatch - but I like it regardless. I am confident these pieces are old. I think they are a great match for my re-furbished board too. The pieces are in great condition - they were quite dirty and dusty but a quick wipe with a cloth and beeswax and they are beautiful.

I hope Holger is ok with me taking a picture of his book for reference but here are my two Regence sets - side by side. The older set on the left. I imagine it was made between 1890-1920; most likely 1910-20. Note the grain in the lighter wood of the older set and also there is more detail in many of the pieces. Of course, the older set has some dings, dents and scrapes too.


I am reasonably sure that this set is the Large French Regency - circa 1900 -as noted here at this Chess-museum site:Large Regency 

Hi all,

I have taken some close up pics of the box - has anyone got a sense of it’s origin? It looks like someone has stained over the top of it in the past so it’s hard to know and I cannot find too much online - albeit I haven’t had a deep look - rather a “man-look” as my wife might say!😊

You might be the Indiana Jones of chess sets Sir Powder.A Knighthood should be forthcoming.

eBay item number:266037935152

Wow...I love your new chess set! It looks so classical...

No way! that just inspired me to buy a wooden chess set

And maybe it's that game: if the sizes of the king match... 1932

I now add a third ‘Regence’ set to this thread. This is smaller - 7.5cm king with a 2.4cm base. An olde world charm and wonderful grain in what I imagine is Jura wood. The difference with this set is the knights are one piece and although the carving is basic, it still think this is a difficult carve. These pieces have a charm that is difficult for a reproduction to convey.

Lovely set! Made in Spain.

Thanks @joenightshade - much appreciated. Another friendly collector also sent me this graphic below which seems to confirm your thoughts … do you think made in spain or made in france and sold to Spainish retailers? My thinking is the former but I thought I’d ask.

@Powderdigit

Nice acquisitions - I'm enamoured with these old Regence style of pieces. The quality of the wood used in the French ones is just lovely. Also, they exist with large menacing knights with beautiful carving. Really pretty! Pic from a recent acquisition ( made by the seller):

I don't know much about the history of the chess turning industry in Spain, but if you look at the pieces some things stand out:

• The wood is not the Jura type of Boxwood, it has a very different grain. 
• There seem to be toolmarks on the tops/bottoms of your pieces, which is very typical of chess pieces made in Spain and very rare for pieces made in the Jura region.

I don't think these were exported that much either - I see them now and then on online market places, always from Spanish sellers. So it seems fair to conclude that they were made in Spain.

I agree. Die Freundlichkeit der Pferde in Deinem regence Spiel kommt mir auch spanisch vor.

The friendly regence knights look like Spanish to me, too.

Love that graphic!!!

Posted before I finished! I think defo made in Spain. The Spanish knights are always in one piece. I have that middle set ...small and cosy! I have a great deal of affection for the regence style...love your board!

I'd like to show you a Regency set that I bought for a very good price on eBay a few days ago. It has a king of just under 80mm tall. The box label has similarities with the other older sets in this thread, with similar wording, and identical lettering style to the set sold on Etsy (which is dated c1910).
My set is 'The Royal Box of Chessmen'. Because of the similarities, I'm thinking it is probably the original box. In the bottom corners of the label I think I can make out the letters 'J. H., B.'. Could that be a maker's mark? Does anyone have any insights on probable maker or date?
Anyway I really like it. I was always sceptical of the practicalities of the design, but, on actually handling the pieces, they are much more stable than I expected, despite being unweighted, due to most of the weight being concentrated towards the bottom. They feel heavy in the hand. I am a convert!

Oh no! we get images chopped to squares for Christmas! If you want to see the pawns of antonius' set, you will have to right-click, open image in new tab. Until chess.com changes this back. Any old panorama view in any old thread seems to suffer the same thing.

Meanwhile, very beautiful set! Here is a work around crop to show the pawns:

Also to show la difficulte, the close resemblance of pawn, bishop and queen.

Thanks, @ungewichtet. I thought that perhaps there was a problem with the 16:9 aspect ratio, so I uploaded some at 3:4 instead, but they are still being chopped. All the imaged were oriented correctly on my pc too. The last time I uploaded images, I didn't encounter this problem.