Posted 13 years ago
LuckyB
(1 item)
Hello, I just acquired a vintage ivory chess set. I could find no visible makers names or marks. I'm finding some sets that appear similar and are called a barleycorn style. I would like to know who made this set, the era made and any additional info would be helpful. It is in amazing condition with no broken parts.
It's certainly not a barleycorn. I believe this would usually be attributed to Hastilow. There's some dispute about whether the sets we call Hasilow have anything to do with Hastilow, but I think this set would usually be called that. The pieces are shaped a lot like a Fisher set (which may have been made by Lund, not Fisher... no one is really sure about most of this stuff... as far as I know... some people know it much better than I,) but you'd see openwork crowns on the major pieces in that kind of set and less ornamentation on the other pieces. All the pearling everywhere, the reins on the knights, and the way the crowns are done on the kings are all very what we generally call Hastilow. You might call it a "Hastilow type set in Fisher or Lund style"... with a disclaimer that no one is really sure if Hastilow made these for those eternal skeptics who'd rather you call it an "English Conventional Chess set" or something like that. Anyway, 19th century... probably before 1850... can't do you better than that. If you can get a hold of Jon Crumiller, send him the pics, and ask him he might be able to date it better. He has a database/timeline he was working on the last time I talked to him... I will say it looks authentic from what I can see in the pictures except the felts are not right. There should not be felts. Someone probably added them in the 20th century because they're used to chess sets have felt bottoms. There's no need to protect the board from unweighted ivory pieces; they won't leave a mark. Fabulous set.