A very recent purchase on E Bay, with clearly visible damage, but when I saw the item I suspected that it just might be a British Chess Company (BCC) trophy.
Was the damage repairable? It certainly is, so I made 3 offers and the seller went to a huge amount of trouble to post it quickly.
With the proposed ban on the sale of ivory coming, purchasing ivory needs serious consideration, however using a lubricant, I dismantled the queen from its plinth
and it matched my BCC staunton in profile as the baize was identical to the material on earlier BCC chessmen. It is easy to make extravagant claims on a maker, but getting it right is important or research credibility goes out of the window for good. The ivory queen minus its ball knop measures almost 3.5 inches and weighs about 250 grams -sadly I cannot read the name of the winner of this trophy.
BCC ivory chessmen are rather scarce and the late chess seller Garrick Coleman kindly informed me that he only ever sold one set – to GM Ray Keene – and the set ended up in the Crumiller Collection, so I guess having 1/32th of a BCC ivory set will have to do!
There is interesting information on the Bohemian Chess Club on the net sourced by Chess Scotland historian, Alan McGowan:-
//www.chessscotland.com/documents/history/biographies/anderson_pb.htm
This article is well worth a good read, and if any person can shed any light on the winner of this trophy, I would be much obliged.
Researcher Mick Deasey sourced some valuable information on chess trophies, and Moffat of BCC placed great importance on the quality of the trophy awarded, as I am very unimpressed with the very ordinary produce of today. Some months ago I tossed a bunch of my own past chess trophies in the bin as looking at the quality of genuine antique produce was enough to relieve myself of this ordinary fare – the memories of how these were achieved won’t be forgotten however…
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