Old English Button Down Chess Set, "St. George" Pattern, ca. 1870-1890

Old English Button Down Chess Set, "St. George" Pattern, ca. 1870-1890

English "Button Down" set in the St. George pattern with pieces made from boxwood and ebony. King size is 76 mm. The design of the kings resembles the Calvert style. There are opposite color marks atop the knights and rooks, which were meant to track the king side knights and rooks in the days before the modern chess notation, just like the king side stamping on the original Jaques sets. Interesting feature of the set is, however, that there are four (!) knights with buttons on top, even though there should be only two, one for each king side. All pieces look original, though, so my assumption is that there was a mistake by the original maker when assembling the set for distribution. The set probably dates to the second half of the 19th century.
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