Minimalist chess sets such as Chavet & Bundesform

Hey, I’m curious what other relatively minimalist chess sets there are akin to the French Chavet and the Deutsche Bundesform.

The Chavet set, designed by Henry Chavet; he started working on it in 1950, and ultimately revealed it in 1960.

The Deutsche Bundesform (German Federation Form), designed by Ehrhardt Post around 1935.

Sorry, but neither of these two reproductions is in any way close to the original. The original Chavet sets are extremely nice and elegant. The repro completely fails to catch that elegance. And the Bundesform repro does not even look similar. It is totally off compared to the original sets from the 1930s. Here is a bit of the true stuff.

Of the Bundesform set, there were different versions, even in the 1930s (not mentioning the more modern variations after the war). The first photo is a Habera version. The second is a version distributed by Hans Hedewig (Curt Ronninger) of Schachzentrale Leipzig.

Here is a setup with a super rare original Posingis chess clock as used in the 1936 Munich Olympiad, in which Bundesform pieces were used.

But talking about your initial question, what other relatively minimalist sets there are, several come to mind. I am exclusively talking about wooden sets, as there are hundreds of minimalist designer sets made of plastic, acrylic glass etc.

The first I would mention is the Berliner form.

Henke made some sets in the 1960s, which were very similar. Here is one from my collection.

Then one would have to mention the Bauhaus chess set designed by Josef Hartwig in 1923.

Another one that comes to mind is the chess set created by Marcel Duchamp.

The Joc Catalan

Then I would mention the so called "Italian Bundesform", a chess set design, which has at length been discussed by Rodolfo Pozzi and Roberto Cassano, both of which have done some admirable research on the set.

And last not least, I have a rather abstract chess set in my collection, which does not have a particular name, but which is a nice example as well, especially since it was made with Karelian Birch, which is one of the nicest woods for chess pieces IMHO.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, I have: the Australian War Memorial chess set and the German "Schlicht-Schach B", which somehow seems to be related. Here are the pictures, I have also included in my book.

Ahem…

When Dr. Holger Langer speaks—

I listen.

@PWalker1 thanks for enduring my rants about terrible reproductions!

Good to know! Based on your photo of the Chavet set it doesn’t become clear to me what has been significantly misrepresented in the reproduction though. It looks pretty accurate to me. I find both sets to be elegant, in any case.

As for the Bundesform, I find the two originals you presented very ugly, but cool to see what they actually looked like.

The Berliner is too abstract for what I’m looking for right now, but it really is a beautiful set. There is also the Herman Ohme minimalist chess set:

The Italian set is really beautiful. I wouldn’t consider the Joc Catalan set to be minimalist, but I love the spiky knights. Is this a pre-Staunton set, or a more modern take on it?

The Karelian Birch set is really fascinating, because the heavily textured irregular wood makes it look way less minimalist than it is. At first sight it reminded me of Polish chess sets like the Wegiel Ambassador.

It can be quite a minimalist design, actually. Most sets just include some extra ornamentation, some of which burned into the wood. Below a more minimalist variant.

And wow, the second Schlicht-Schach B set is amazing, with the flattened horse. Interesting to see all pieces being the same height.

I never considered the Bundesform sets attractive. In fact, they are probably among the most unattractive sets ever made, not only because of aesthetics, but also because of the political context. But they are historically relevant and therefore worthy collectibles.

And don't get me wrong, I do not reject or dislike the chess sets you are showing above. I just don't like them to be sold by their manufacturers as reproductions, because they hardly are. My main problem with most modern reproductions, in particular the ones coming from Indian makers, is "accuracy". My personal understanding of a reproduction in this context is to duplicate something as true and accurate as possible to the original. However, most Indian reproductions are not true copies, but new interpretations of a certain design. For a proper reproduction they simply lack accuracy. And I know what I am talking about because of my own experiences collaborating with Indian makers on true reproductions. It took several months of constant work on sample pieces, before the knight carver finally got his version of the knight at least 95% accurate, which was good enough for me at that time.

Yes, I forgot that one! You are totally right, a nice design.

Much younger than Staunton. It was designed in the late 1920s.

This is a mystery set. I am still trying to find out more about it, but there are hardly any traces.

@EfimLG47 Regarding 'reproductions', my sentiments are very close to yours. My definition of a 'reproduction' is something that's made by the same company with the same machines and processes, but just at a much later time after the initial era. Basically anything else is just a copy, imitation, or knock-off. (Though maybe exceptions were the Brasilian Taurus 92 made with actual Italian Beretta 92 machines, and EI 12ax7 clones of Telefunken smooth plates) I also see that some (Indian) manufacturers are doing a very good job at copying some originals, and the term 'reproduction' has been used somewhat liberally and seems to be fairly accepted. Right or wrong, I guess it is what it is.

Yes, some manufacturers are doing a great job. No doubt about it.

Some of the later chess set design , Look very nice , Still what put me of buying is one the hidden import tax + Vat + the ebony cracking . These set are no longer a cheap buy + looking at OP on this forum really put me off buying sets in today market .

Yeah, for ebony I think I will only buy from House of Staunton from now on. I don’t think it’s worth saving money on a set but having it crack within a few years. From what I understand though, as long as it’s not ebony, it’s not going to crack even without HoS’s nifty weighting system. With the set I got from the Chess Empire in 2021, all ebony pieces cracked at the base except for the rooks and pawns; but none of the boxwood pieces did.

Yeah, fair. I think it does a lot of damage to the history as well, when laymen like myself almost uncritically accept new interpretations as representative of the originals. In cases like the Tal sets I have looked extensively into the originals though, and I find almost none of the “reproductions” are true to the original. Some of them come closer to the later Tal designs, but the knights still tend to be too serpentine-looking. Usually beautiful in their own right, but just nothing like the original designs. And the end result is that manufactures keep making reproductions of misinterpreted or reinterpreted “reproductions”.

Yesterday I tried to find the original Bohemia set and the one used in the 1970 chess tournament and found little. I think the reproductions I saw are reasonably close to the original 1950 ones, but I can’t verify that. But the 1970 version seems harder to find.

I’m curious, what are the main differences between the original Chavet and the reproduction I posted? Are there closeup pictures available of the original?

I have a closeup picture, but it is not quite the exact same perspective and setup. But I think it is good enough to demonstrate some of the deviations.

I observe the following deviations in the repro:

Kings: crosses, head reclines in too sharp an angle, dimensions and size ratio of collars, distance between two upper collars, lower collar disc too large

Queens: Head protrudes at too sharp an angle, same collar issues as kings

Bishops: button finial is flat, while it should be round, shape of head in general is off

Knights: curve of neck is too angular (not the elegant curve of the original), original does not have eyes!!!

Rooks: too large compared to other pieces, crenellation height is significantly smaller, stem is less curved

Pawns: bases too broad

I am not a native speaker, I hope my explanations are understandable.

PS: I am currently working on a small book on Bohemia. Quite a fascinating history. No need for a reproduction of the 1970 set, as originals are still available from time to time and usually for lower prices than the repro.

@WandelKoningin, I mentioned my own reproduction project before. Here is the example of the knight (by far the most complicated piece in any reproduction), just to give you an idea of how much attention to detail you need when you want to be accurate.

1) The idea was to recreate a historical chess set from this engraving in a catalogue of 1885.

The first sample piece presented by the knight carver was this (straight out of a Disney movie)

We then provided instructions on what to change to reach the desired accuracy. This is just one page of several with detailed instructions and illustrations

It still took several weeks for the knight carver to come up with the final result, which is this.

Real beauty, very organic!

EfimLG47 wrote:

This thread has some good pics of different chavet sets

the size of the set changes the perspective and dimensions of the design https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/henri-chavet-guide

It’s one of my favorite designs for a playable set, specifically for the minimalism. I got mine from TCE and love the way it looks and handles.

I wish there were more buying options, woods etc, for this design. Or even derivatives of the design like the german timeless set but with a sleeker more french knight.

Oh wow, such large heads and rounded proportions! Fascinating. The knight looks really beautiful; more gentle and less angular than the “reproduction” as far as I can see.