I found a very old looking chess set...

Hey I'm new to this site and registered because I am trying to determine the value of a chess set I found at home. If you can provide any information at all I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

They look gorgeous. What materials are they made of?

Thank you. To be honest I'm not sure what they're made of. I don't know much about the set at all. The pieces are fairly heavy and seem like they can be made of some sort of stone. The top of the board seems to be made of the same material, whereas the edges of the board are made of wood. 

Thank you very much. I appreciate all the help I can get with this. The pieces do look like they were carved. And you are saying that the patterns appear to be from a mold from where?

I see. So would you be able to tell, or is there a way for me to tell, how old this set may be? And thanks again for your help. Greatly appreciated.

Look under the board to see if you can find any inscriptions or logos etc.

It looks like a Mexican marble set to me.  The carvings on the squares seem to follow Mayan or Toltec motifs.  They make marble chess sets like crazy down there, and sell them to tourists on the cheap.

This set looks better than most of that type to me.  Usually the pieces are mostly carved on one side, and they are simple.  These are fairly intricate, and the board is stylized--and it's foldable with storage.  The boards I have seen down there are usually solid and offer no storage.  The craftsmen who made this set put more effort into it than most do.

As for value, I couldn't say.  They go for more in the States than they do in Mexico.  I bought a simple marble set with a solid marble board down there for $40 a couple of years ago, and probably could have gotten it for less.  They expect to haggle.  This one might have been somewhere between $100 and $200 dollars if bought in Mexico, maybe more...just a guess.

Edit: These pieces don't look like marble, the more I look at it.  What are they made of?  Also, the board...are those marble tiles, or could it be ceramic?  It might be cheaper than I initially thought...but it's still an interesting set.

I checked, didn't see anything.

Thanks. Really appreciate the input. I really can't tell what it's made of. I added a couple more pics but I'm not sure that will help. 

The board appears to be made of inlaid ceramic tiles.  The brown tiles have flecks that give it away.  The motifs on the tiles look Mayan or Toltec, but could be from anywhere in Central America.  

The pieces don't go along with the ancient Mayan-style theme, which is a little strange.  Are they molded?  Do you see any seams that may have been sanded off?

As I look at the pieces, on some it looks as if there could have been seams that were sanded off, on others it's hard to tell.

I'm adding another two pictures that are extreme close-ups so you can see some details. It looks like the brown pieces are made up of many very small rocks, if you look closely.

And thanks for your help with this. Greatly appreciated.

The pieces look like this set, at least in style as the color is different:

http://greenville-sc.americanlisted.com/furniture/stone-carved-chess-set-499-greenville_21020523.html

Not sure if it really is as old as that site is claiming or worth that much though.

Do you have closer shots of the black pieces? From what I can find via google image searches, it looks loke it might be a Spanish Conquistador set made of soapstone. It looks like the white pieces are the Spanish and the black could be the natives ( e.g. Aztec, Mayan ). Maybe from the 50's, though that idea only came from one site I looked at.

I have seen a similar set ,I can't quite make out in your picture but in the one I saw the white pieces were all Spanish characters and the black pieces were Mayan . The designs on the board were Mayan just like in your set. The set I saw that looked like this one was from moulded resin that was stained and then polished to give it a shine . The pieces were weighted to give it a feel of being made from some heavy material.

Yes actually my pieces look exactly like those in the link. The only difference is those darker pieces have a greenish tint.. mine are brownish. The inside looks almost exactly like the inside of my set.

The set could be exactly what you described because the brown pieces are definitely the natives and it looks like the white are the Spanish. Here are some pics of each:

And thanks a lot for the help.

Yes there are definitely the flecks of green. That seems interesting. Not sure what bornite looks like.

I added a couple of close pictures of the pieces. But yes thats exactly what the pieces seem to be. Is it possible that there were cheaper replica's made based on a model like this one?

That looks like a really cool set, not very common...unusual. Love it, and thanks for sharing. Unless it is an antique, it will not be worth very much...couple $100 bucks, but probably worth more to chess players.

I don,t think they are made for tourists, too intricate, but its difficult to be sure, the case looks touristy, but the hinges are sunken, they don,t look valuable to me, but what do i know.

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