A chess set made of cast iron, which can be attributed to the foundry of E.G.Zimmermann in Hanau. It dates back to ca. 1850. The base of the black king is imprinted with "FR. MALCHOW Fct." and "12636" or "12836". The imprint "Fct." stands for the latin "factum", which indicates that the casting was designed by "FR. MALCHOW". This again refers to the artist Johann Friedrich Malchow (1815-1886), born in Fürstenwalde and later residing in Berlin, where he was working for the Royal Iron Foundry and some private foundries, in particular that of A.R.Seebass. The Seebass foundry moved to Hanau around 1839/1840 and soon after that entered into an association with the foundry of E.G.Zimmermann, likewise based in Hanau. In 1842 Zimmermann and Seebass ended their cooperation and Seebass moved the foundry to Offenbach. From that time on Friedrich Malchow must have moved from Berlin to Hanau and must have exclusively worked for Zimmermann, as  an entry in the 1853 Hanau address book suggests, which reads: "J.F.Malchow, modeller in the iron foundry of E.G.Zimmermann" (cf. Peter Christian Reuel / Thomas H. Thomsen, Cast Iron Chess Sets by E.G. Zimmermann, Cast Iron and Chess, 2006). Many of the castings from that time made by Zimmermann bear his name and sometimes his signature.

Today, five different chess sets are known that bear the Zimmermann mark, among them the chess set shown here being commonly labelled "Crusaders" or "The Crusades". The white side is showing a medieval court, while the black side is shown as moors. The distinctive feature of this set is that both the white pieces and the black pieces have their individual design and are different from the respective piece of the opposite side, i.e. the black knights have a little ornamental finial on their head, which the white knights do not have and the white rooks are shown as slender octagonal towers with a roofed top, whereas the black rooks are slender round, minaret like towers with a dome top.

King size is 72.5 mm (2.85").