Maple Staunton Chess Set from Dr. Valentine's Collection

• Maple - Maple, native to North America, is a dense heavy timber from light to yellow-brown in colour. It has very little distincive graining unless it is one of the variants such as birds-eye maple or burr maple, so was not used extensively for furniture in 18th and 19th century, where cabinetmakers and designers preferred timbers with more distinctive features such as mahogany, walnut, rosewood and oak.
  
  Birds-eye maple has a seres of small spots linked by undulating lines in the grain, is highly sough and is used as a decorative veneer. Burr maple has larger and irregular grain swirls than birds-eye maple.
• Staunton Chess Set - How should the king, queen, rooks and other pieces be depicted? Why is the king always the tallest piece and have a cross on his head. And why is the knight depicted as a horse head?
  
  Until the adaption of a standard design, the designs of the pieces in every set varied. The Staunton chess set set a standard design for each piece used in the game of chess, and was the style adopted for use in chess competitions.
  
  The Staunton designs were developed in 1849 and sold by sports and games manufacturers Jaques & Son of London, and were either designed by the proprietor of the firm, John Jaques or his his brother in law, Nathaniel Cook.
  
  The design was named after Howard Staunton, an English chess player who was regarded as the leading player in the 1840s to 1850s.
  
  The style has been popular for more than 160 years, and is still the standard today in tournament chess games and competitions.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• games and puzzles, chess - chess boards and sets, Staunton design 26