1930s time capsule

Picked up this nice 3.2" Lardy set from the 1930s.

Overall in rather good condition with the compulsory (but mild) leans on notably the bishops. Pieces have rather different propertions from the later Lardy sets I own.  Here's king and queen compared to a similarly sized set from the 1940s, 

The set came in the typical red box from the period, with a stamp on the bottom which I can't really make out.   
"Priezy"? Could be related to the Dutch chess club or the previous owner?

The box also contained a number of fun additions:

Newspaper clippings from 1935 & 1936

A handwritten analysis from agame between Lilienthal and Capablanca (Hastings, 1935)

7 game sheets from the previous owner ("Fransr"? which is on every sheet) played in 1935 & 1936

That period marked the heyday of Dutch chess with Euwe becoming world champion (end of 1935) in the Netherlands, which saw an explosion 
in the number of chess clubs in the country.

Strangely, the game sheets are probably my favourite. How did you find this?

Not strange at all, that's exactly the reason why I pulled the trigger on this one. Somehow the physical link to the past owner makes it more "real" to me. It was a listing on a local craigslist (from someone probably in the house clearance business, sadly he couldn't give any info on the previous owner)

I must admit that I do like these mid-sized sets a lot as well. I rotate chess sets to play with and my bigger sets never seem to make the cut.

@brownishgerbil Very cool find! It's lovely when you can track down some of the history of a set, a very rare thing!

These pre-WWII knights are the ones that look most like some of the British counterparts IMO. I believe that Lardy was catering to the British market especially at that time. I received a set yesterday that came with mixed-knights from the same period as your set. 2 knights are similar to yours, and 2 knights look even more British to me and very atypical Lardy. The whole set is quite atypical. I could post some pics later if you're interested.

Do you have pictures of the knights of your 40s set? I have been trying to get a good overview of all the Staunton styles that came out of France for the first half of the 20th century. It seems you have some knowledge about this

You may be right on the link to the British market, I've seen these types of kings/queens in a number of (older) Lardy (?) sets. Of course, french manufacturers exported over the whole world and in many cases as a subcontractor to manufacture pieces not marketed as eg Lardy at all.

Here's a picture of the 1940s set (as far as I know at least, my so-called knowledge on the matter is minimal at best) mentioned earlier:

And a 3.5" set from the 50s of which I'm not even sure it is truly a Lardy with the far broader knights base

To expand further on the design influences, here's a older French dogface set where K, Q and B (sorry if it sounds like blasphemy to some people) bear resemblance, to my untrained eye, to the respective pieces in the BCC popular set. Good designs rub off I guess?

I've seen (but sadly didn't buy) sets with a typical Lardy-like knight having the same design as the above one.

Thank you for sharing all 3 sets! I love the bishop on the first one. I've seen sets with that type of knight that were from the 50s/60s if I remember correctly. Doesn't mean it didn't exist in the 40ies though. The queens body is taller than the king and the queens top is flatter without much of a dome. That could probably help determine the rough age of the set as well.

The type of knight in the 2nd set (very steep angle of the square front nose) I think in general occurred earlier than the one in the 1st set with less steep angle - roughly from the 50s onward.

You know what I find so funny is that they seemed to deliberately make the bishop cuts asymmetric during that period. One of my 30s set already has that - slightly tilted to the right on all 4 bishops. Like a trademark thing or so?

Your 3rd set is so cool! I initially thought that those sets were made in England - but what you say makes a lot of sense - making them by specifications of British clients. What I received yesterday looks very similar to this set but with the Lardy knights. Pictures incoming..

So I received this one yesterday, acquired it locally here in the Netherlands. It is a larger set at KH 93mm - maybe the largest that Lardy produced at the time (early/mid 30s). The set overall is in a very good condition with no damage to any of the pieces. It comes in a huge box which has a very nice semi-glossy finish on it. I have another set (very different style, but possibly also made by Lardy) that came in such a box and was also acquired in the Netherlands. Both of these sets are likely to have been produced in the 30s - so possibly these boxes could have been used by an importer at that time. I have never seen this finish on a box that I acquired directly from France.

The pieces look similar to the ones in your 3rd set. Shorter body of the queen, more bulbous bishop head with wider incision. Notably the pawns in this set are leaner with smaller heads than my other Lardy set. The rooks turrets are very shallow. The king height is around 93mm, which all 3 of the sets I have from the 20s & early 30s are. It seems to me that Lardy switched to kings of around 96mm somewhere mid or late 30s.

Ok, now comes the most bizarre part. The set comes with 2 types of knights. Both sides come with the 2 different types. If you look at the bottom the color of the felt is slightly different. So the most British looking one (left on the 1st picture) - must have been a replacement in this set. Or they got mixed up somehow. The patina of the knights is very similar. And the bases, finishing and carving (manes, eyes, dimples, incisions, teeth, ears), well.. judge for yourself.

Believe it or not, I have another set in pristine condition from the 30s with 2 types of knights (both known Lardy types). Similar situation there.

An excellent thread - thanks for all the pics and thoughts. Great stuff.👍

@BrownishGerbil Lovely sets with special bonus, thanks for sharing.

@broomstuck I have a similar knight to one of yours, and I 'm not sure whether it's Lardy or how old it is.

Here's the comparison:

@Pamvo7 They took some liberty in the crest but that's surely a Lardy knight from the 30s/early 40s. The socket looks to be taller on your specimen (which is typical of Lardy knights in general, especially in smaller sets). What's the king's height of your set? Mind to post a pic of the other pieces & box?

Very nice procurement indeed. Anyone else find the superb penmanship intriguing? It seems to be sorely missing in today's society. Thank you for posting.

I got 2 sets from the same place and I think the boxes were switched.

The first set is weighted:

And the second one is not weighted and looks much older, felts are in bad state:

both have black ebonized pieces. Black "Dogface" knights of the older set have longer heads than white ones:

These are the boxes, newer on top , label "Staunton 5 / 6 CH "

Older is mahogany red, without lid, and at the bottom it has pencil writing 112/6 or No2/6

King's height is 92-93mm for both sets.

@Pamvo7 Beautiful sets! Both size 6, can you measure the exact king heights?

Agree that the dog-knight set looks older. The collars of K/Q/B are higher up and the stems are slender. Looks like the white pieces got treated with reddish varnish. This set is in beautiful condition, really rare to see! And in this size I have never seen one I think. 

Older set 93mm and 91mm

Newer set 92mm and 91mm

Thanks for your help!

Do you know when the 'Dog Face' knights were first made?

Thanks! So yes, it confirms what I thought - largest sets of early 30s and older come with 93mm kings.

I have the feeling your dog-face set is not a Lardy but possibly a Chavet set. They tended to like the leaner stems and more of a curve from the base up. It seems to me that the 112/6 is a Chavet code to indicate type and size. @walterbiensur, what do you think?

For sure already early 1900. These pop up now and then but almost always in smaller sizes (60/80mm kings).

Before that, the dogface was already used on regence style knights. I have a set from around 1880/1890 with them.

@broomstuck If you would flash that rook in front of me, my first instinct would be to say "that's a British made rook". But maybe that's because I'm more used to seeing the cuts in the crenelations not going all the way down to the first horizontal "line" in french sets.

Maybe you could compare the felts of the pieces to see which knight is the "imposter" if they still appear to be original.

In regards to the size: I've seen 4"-plus Lardys (club size) being posted here which had been dated around the 1940s. I've no idea if those existed pre-WW2 but I don't really see why that wouldn't be the case.

@Pamvo7 What an amazing dogface set!

I posted a pic with the felts - the one on the left is the imposter. I'm pretty sure from the looks of it that it came from roughly the same place and time though.

The set is very similar to the one posted by @pamvo7 which comes with the same typical Lardy knights and Lardy Label on the box. I have no doubts anymore that these sets are made by Lardy for export. Very nice that we could figure that out here!

I have never seen a > 96mm KH set with these older type of knights. The large ones all feature post WWII knights. That may have been the time that Lardy got a bigger foothold in the US, where demands for bigger pieces may have been strong.