Extremely nice playing set. The kings stand at 4". All pieces are weighted. To me this set looks very Romanian / Hungarian or even Czech, but according to the seller, the set is allegedly either of Austrian or South German origin. The snake knights and the top balls of the bishops painted in opposite colour could well be Austrian, but the bulbous bases of the pawns, the sturdy shape of the rooks and the pointed top balls of the bishops are more typical for sets with South German origin.

The set came with an extra wooden box and a massive and heavy folding board with beautiful inlays made of five different woods. The size of the board is 455 mm x 455 mm, when open, square size 45 mm. Around the playing field is an inlaid rim with inlaid numbering of the ranks and files. The numbering is not correct to today's standards, as the ranks and files are somehow mixed up, with the a-file beginning for each side on the right, i.e. a1 from white's perpective is h8 from black's perspective. I have seen this before on a board that came with an Austrian coffeehouse set and was wondering, whether this is a mistake or if this was following an earlier system. 

Assuming that the pieces and the board are part of a set, it is rather easy to date it, as there are two inlay works on the inside, one being the initial "A" with "20.X" below, the other being the initial "X" with 1939 below. To me this looks like a gift set presented to someone with the initials "A.X." on 20 October 1939. I was looking on the internet, but could not find any reliable information. There was a German SS leader Adolf Ax, who was appointed first Commander of the Panzerabwehr-Abteilung of the SS-VT-Division on 20 October 1939 and who got married to his fiancé Margot on that very same day. He was stationed in Ellwangen in the south of Germany at that time, which would fit to my assessment of the origin of the set, but that is all highly speculative and most likely not the true story behind the set, but a nice fantasy.