I bought this in the Phillis Tuckwell charity shop in Farnham on Tuesday, I have to say the Phillis Tuckwell shop in Farnham has some very, very, very smart stock, lots of old collectables, stamps and ephemera, white elephant, ceramics, fabrics and clothing, old toys (a tray of good condition Yesteryear's), I could have spent a fortune, but this was in the window, and while not cheap, is near perfect, so I settled on this.
For reasons, I WILL bore you with another day, this is how you are supposed to display a chess set for sales purposes, one of each piece in one colour and a pawn from the opposing side. The set is bone, not ivory, I do have an ivory set or two, and one day we'll have a mini season on chess sets, but for now, these happen to be in front of me!
Exquistely hand-made threads on all the base discs, and several sections of the Kings and Queens, I don't know if these are a Napoleonic POW's work, or something more commercial, or later? I suspect something a little more modern, as the joins are all tight, unlike earlier sets, where some threads can be quite loose. Suggesting the maker had a jig, if not a modern tap & die set?
You can tell it's bone, at a glance, none of the warmth of ivory, nor yellowing with age/handling, and clear striations in the material, along with some rough areas like this crown underside, all easy clues to it being bone rather than ivory.
The greatest variation is in the Pawns where some look visually quite different, simply by being a millimetre higher, or a little fatter or thinner, and I think one Castle (first image above) may be a replacement, but it's quite a good, sympathetic one, just a slightly shallower battlement/longer neck.
The black side was fully coloured before fiddling cleaned/wore the threads. I suspect the whole side has been 'enhanced' with a marker pen, and at some point I will give them an alcohol dip and rinse, to remove anything like that, and then either re-stain with old India ink, or rub melted boot-polish into them with an old toothbrush, and buff with a soft cloth! Nice find!
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