Recently I won a weighted wooden Staunton club set via the Saleroom auction site with by far the most  interesting provenance of any set that I have in my chess collection:-

www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/great-western-auctions-ltd/catalogue-id-srgreat10183/lot-a2a7af68-39a1-4542-bc79-b17f0103c290

When I noted this set on offer by The Great Western Auctions in Glasgow I had no idea of what ‘GLCC‘ meant. I have over the years made a number of purchases from this auction house and have been most happy with their service. However thanks to the work of Alan McGowan, historian /archivist Chess Scotland, I was able to easily source this most interesting piece of history:-

Chess Scotland

These ladies were fighters known as Suffragettes who fought tooth and nail for the right to vote!

Since the popular Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit, women’s chess has been given deserved notice, yet to fully note the complete nonsense of ladies being discriminated against by pompous males, in  Ireland the Dublin Chess Club held a a general meeting on 21st November 1867 regarding the long vexed question of the admission of ladies which was settled. Source history of the Dublin chess club by A A Luce .

Amongst such nonsense being debated was the ” COLL ” (Cost of Ladies’ Loos)? – perhaps gentlemen who feared a loss to a lady at a chess club would consider committing Seppuku thus taking the Japanese suicidal ritual to protect themselves from feared ridicule?

This treasured club set has a replacement bishop stamped GLCC on the base like all the other 31 chess pieces, but this was the least of my concerns when deciding to bid for the set. For the most part pretty much every set that I own has minimal proven provenance unlike this one!