A Visual History of Chessmen

Public service announcement: if you want to give a gift to a semi-serious or serious chess player don't give them a reproduction of an historical set such as those in the article and don't give them a modern themed set such as an Alice in Wonderland set or a Civil War set or a Sherlock Holmes set or a Lord of the Rings set no matter how much they are fans of the subject of the set's theme unless you have very good reason to believe they actually will want the specific set you want to give them.

To a majority of semi-serious or serious players those sets are only interesting as art objects. They will almost never actually use them to play chess. When they actually want to play a game they usually want a set that meets FIDE or their local federation's tournament standards, and is sturdy enough that it won't be damaged in a mad rush to beat the clock in an endgame.

Even if they personally are OK with playing on an historical or themed set they might have trouble finding people to play with. If I come to their house and they want me to play chess with them I am not going to play on their Sherlock Holmes themed set [1] where I'll spend half my time trying to remember if Inspector Lestrade is a rook or a bishop.

[1] https://www.houseofstaunton.com/catalog/product/view/id/3658...

Neat. This would be fun to model for 3D printing. I once did a chess set in OpenSCAD. https://github.com/iamwilhelm/kings_gambit

This is very nice. The full list however would be much too large, however, e.g.

- Louis Vuitton is included and Super Mario was not, even though it has been very popular.

- Wartime travel set pieces are included which are arguably tokens representing chess pieces and not formal chess pieces, and that is well and good, but even more cheap stone sets were sold to tourists in Mexico that had a distinctive look which are not mentioned here.

- No mention of other variations of chess and how those pieces evolved.

- Many online stores sell chess pieces in variations unmentioned.

> As shatranj, new rules are introduced that cause the game to begin to resemble modern chess, including the rule that the King cannot be captured but must be rendered helpless: shah mat, the King is helpless, gives us the word checkmate.

Checkmate is by far the weirdest rule in chess, as capturing the king would lead to an essentially identical strategy and game, but without all the extra rule complexity of checks and checkmates.

(The exceptions are castling details and the stalemate rule. If kings could be captured, stalemates would not exist. But I argue that’s a feature not a bug. Stalemates do little to enhance fundamental strategy, their primarily use being hail mary gotchas for low level plays. In any case, kings-cannot-captured exists to make stalemates possible.)

Very impressive work. It must have taken ages to get this page together and be so factually full. Love the evolution of the pieces design over time.

What do I picture? 2D pieces, to be honest. Computer chess is just so prevalent. I picture what I'd call "USCF style" [1] because that's what they'd use in the Chess Life magazine to annotate games. I also picture the "old style" pieces [2], used in other periodicals & some books (especially puzzles).

I bet a lot of people picture the default set on Chess dot com. I find it very hard to adjust to new sets, for whatever reason.

As far as real pieces, I picture plastic pieces & vinyl board. Either what I'd call the "triple-weighted set" [3] (my favorite), the plastic "Dreuke set" [4], or the "basic USCF set" [5].

I had no idea there were so many variations, especially in the last 100 years. Most I've never seen before. I still dislike the real abstract/bauhaus style but there's a lot of artistry in the sets.

[1] on lichess, it's called "companion"

[2] on lichess, it's called "leipzig"

[3] https://www.chessset.com/collections/weighted-chess-pieces-h...

[4] Player's Choice, like https://www.wholesalechess.com/reproduction-of-the-drueke-pl...

[5] https://www.uscfsales.com/single-weighted-regulation-plastic...

Yeah, I always think of the old beat up plastic set at the park near my house. Some of the pieces were scratched up, a few were kinda melted probably left in the sun too long. But that’s what I learned on, so it still feels like “real” chess to me.

It’s weird how no matter how fancy the sets get, that scruffy one is still the one I picture first.

Re: the Norse Chessmen,

My mother told me the gnawing-the-shield image is said to be how the norsemen were said to psych themselves up before battle. She said the hemp rope around the shield was meant to be impregnated by drugs, or be psychoactive otherwise. This was said back in the 70s mind you..

The description of the bishops as other roles is very confusing given the crozier. The article surely must mean that taking the norse chessmen as holotypes, the variants found in russia, baltic states.. &c made similar changes?

The set is split between The BM in London, and the Royal Scottish Museum, and sometimes a piece or two is on display elsewhere. the Museum shop sells really exceptionally well made casts, we also had the resin kit with rubber moulds which made significantly less well made, bubble ridden, smelly versions.

They are said to be the property of a trader in Walrus Ivory, being mixed parts of more than one set when found.

Lanier Graham is my pick of the bunch. Finally a set that doesn't require a lathe or a chisel!

My ex-wife (long ago) made me a set of chess pieces in resin as a birthday present, in a kind of Norse style, which were quite nice. And my dad had a set of plastic ones in a sort of Gothic style. Bothe were good, but I still think Staunton is the best.

An amazing page with a lot of chess designs, definitely did not expect that many, and was surprised that the beloved Staunton chess set was designed by someone else.

relevant? GenChess - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42248630 - Nov, 2024 (238 comments)

Thanks for sharing!