Some years ago at a Bloomsbury chess auction, I noticed a collector checking out a metal set with a magnet, and I asked my very good friend Joost van Reij why he was doing this – apparently it is the easiest way to check out the material on this type of set.
Recently I saw what looked like a cast iron set on e bay and I decided to make an offer which was accepted with little knowledge of what I was doing, and I was able to identify it thanks to a recent CCI publication on cast iron chess sets. This publication was a great help, and it was very satisfying to discover anything about it. With a king of just over 8cms, there is little doubt it is a nice thing – not too big or heavy -, and one can see why some collectors like them.
I purchased the set with no original box and quickly confirmed from the images on page 13 that this publication offered very trustworthy information, as the king had a stamp A M NACHF, plus the magnet worked.
There is so much to know about the vast quantity of collectable sets out there, I remember a very well known collector researcher telling me at the Cambridge CCI meeting ” we don’t know everything” , so being able to believe what is published out there is rather important.
This being my first original cast iron set, I won’t turn down another one as I am delighted to own it!
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