This unweighted set was bought via the Saleroom from Lawrence’s Auctions. The set came with a box in dreadful condition, with no makers name nor any clue of its origin. NB: no fault whatsoever of the auction house as owners of old sets do neglect the boxes and often place sets into auction in poor condition. I have repaired dozens of boxes which arrived damaged – sometimes a PVA glue does the trick. Superglue is risky – beware of ‘Frank Spencer’ results (Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em!):-
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The felts had worn off and become green dust thus the pieces needed re-felting, so on a hunch or in truth I guessed it could be German and took the set to the very recent Oxford CCI meeting and suggested my German theory. The results were mighty interesting, with none too many viewers expressing a confident opinion that I may very well be correct. It seems to me that the existing knowledge on German and French Stauntons is rather vague and needs work. Having viewed a heck of a lot of claimed German and French Stauntons, it seems that sellers have a complete free hand with their inspired guesswork. Once sold the item becomes a rather unreliable statistic – with great credit being given to sellers who are crowned as experts in the field of chess knowledge. Yet in a host of private discussions with very knowledgeable chess collectors, it is a no brainer to be sceptical about so many sold claims. The basic problem is simply this:- the majority are most reluctant to simply tell the truth, and they know nothing thus if the sold item was mis-described admission of this can cause friction with the buyer, even from the distant past.
For any new collectors starting on this journey, the quality of the chessmen needs to be carefully studied before parting with purse emptying prices. Even boxes cannot be relied upon for accurate information – written dates with pencil are easily done, retailers’ labels can be transferred from one box to another which confuses this issue even further. So my simple question is this:- “do I like the set?” – yes! “does it matter if I am in error”? – of course not! “Was it worth the money I paid for it”? – yes, indeed it was! This business of only buy what you like advocated by many collectors is by far the safest approach in collecting rather than being blinded by brands.
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