A possible design for a chess set, looks a bit like apple cores
100 unusual antique chess sets
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A board at auction which I thought might have pictures by Tenniel
I love 169 and 184.
Hi Lawrence,
Yes, 169 is a very elegant Danish (so-called) Selenus style set. Very popular on the continent from about 1600 onward. Selenus, AKA Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. can be found here amongst other places. https://www.nps.gov/long/blogs/selenus-style-chess-set.htm for example
The Tenniel board (184) is one of many regrets, I did not buy it.
chessspy1 wrote:
Not chess but simply the best non-chess thing I ever made. A set of butt markers.Each one has to be identical and the whole has to fit the Aspreys silver box exactly,
I thought perhaps these were cribbage board pegs.
Hi Alan,
No, although I made plenty of those. They are 8 triangular section lengths each has a number inscribed from 1 to 8 they are used to decide the draw for a 'Butt' when shooting (don't cha know) because some places are more favourable than others (nearer the birds I suppose) it is all decided by draw. So each and every one has to be exactly like another and they all have to fit exactly in the container, (silver, dated 1895 Aspreys) $3000 I think, if you like that sort of thing.
https://www.loveantiques.com/antique-silver/chester-assay-office-(closed-1962)/antique-silver-butt-marker-1912-78939
For a later set by a less well-collected maker.
chessspy1 wrote:
Hi Alan,
No, although I made plenty of those. They are 8 triangular section lengths each has a number inscribed from 1 to 8 they are used to decide the draw for a 'Butt' when shooting (don't cha know) because some places are more favourable than others (nearer the birds I suppose) it is all decided by draw. So each and every one has to be exactly like another and they all have to fit exactly in the container, (silver, dated 1895 Aspreys) $3000 I think, if you like that sort of thing.
https://www.loveantiques.com/antique-silver/chester-assay-office-(closed-1962)/antique-silver-butt-marker-1912-78939
For a later set by a less well-collected maker.
Thanks for explaining Alan. Very nicely done to fit the cylindrical case. Are you a grouse hunter?
"Are you a grouse hunter?"
No, no, it's the posh types that do all that. I'm just a working lad from the big city.
Although I could have been a 'gricer' https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gricer
But I decided to devote my life to fixing chess sets.
This is a German method of mass producing shapes. It is called Reifendrahen. It would work for knight's heads also as shown below
These are Jonchette pieces and though by some collectors to be 'sand sets' It is an interesting story how they came to be confused with chess.
In or around 1940 a London chess dealer called Alex Hammond who had a shop in Chelsea was shopping in the Paris antiques markets and bought a handful of these figures on sticks. Not knowing what they were but thinking they looked like chess figures he bought a few. He had a carver called Bertram Jones who he used to restore chess sets which were damaged for him. Bertram made up a lot of these for Alex, even branching into making compete sets.
A set of model lathes.
