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Friday, January 21, 2011

Unique chess sets go for great prices at Bonhams auction

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011


Hello Everyone,

The Bonhams auction in London saw unique chess sets go for great prices this week, according to ArtDaily.org news.

An 18th century Russian mammoth ivory chess set was the top lot of the Chess, Playing Cards and Games auction that took place on January 17 at The Bonhams, Knightsbridge.

The intricately carved set was highly sought after and eventually sold for £19,000, against a pre-sale estimate of £2000-3000. The village of Kholmogory in Russia is famous for the local craft of carving in bone, which as existed there for over four hundred years.

From Europe a very rare, 300 year old south German, ivory and ebony figural chess set sold for £16,500. Made around 1700, the King and Queen were dressed in 17th -18th century interpretations of dress and the pawns were dressed in baggy breeches and flared bottomed coats.

A Chinese, jade mah jong set made around 1920 that belonged to HM Queen Elisabeth of Greece sold for £9,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £1,200- 1,600. The silk-lined wooden case that held forty jade tiles with bone counters and four jade and gilt dice was sold with a letter from HSH Prince Marc of Hohenzollern-Roumanie explaining the provenance of the set, dated 1979.

Also, “The Game of War”, an intricate 600 piece game dating from 1890 sold for £4,000, four times its pre-sale estimate of £1,500-£2000.

Here is our previous www.chessblog.com post on the auction.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

1 comment:

  1. Janet Llewyn, LondonJanuary 21, 2011 at 8:09 AM

    I was hoping to pick one up but...

    ReplyDelete

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