LARDY ( FRANCE)
These pieces fashioned in France at the Jura region were often used in the period 1920-1980 and featured in many major events such as the Women's Olympiad 1956, the Nice Chess Olympiad 1974 and Dubai1986 and tournaments during this time. One of the features of an old Lardy is the "lean" of the taller pieces markedly the King or Queen, owing to the insufficient drying of the wood before production. Hence it is a rarity that you get an upright Lardy royal.
The wooden French Lardy design was also exported to the US in the 1940s-1970s by major game producers such as Plesantine Games, the Pacific Game company (marketed under the name Cavalier), as well as Drueke, Parker Bros and E.S. Lowe, with minor changes especially in the design of the Knight and Bishop.
Here is an old French Staunton set which is a precursor of the later Lardy's.
Shown here is a early acquisition of a Lardy marketed by Marshall Fields, mainly sized at 3.25" or 3.5" King. I like the Library sized Lardys for playing and analysing as they are sufficiently weighted to allow for fast movements.
The European Lardy's are usually sized at 3.75" going to even as large as 4.75" Kings. I managed to get 2 good 4.25" for a reasonable price (back in 2016). It came with a nice board (which I had ruined by doing a bad paint job on it).
They are different sets but both sourced from the UK
I treasured those which were made mainly for the 1974 Nice Olympiad so the sets came with the official logo. So far I had collected 3 such sets.
Do join the chess set collector groups on Facebook as they have lots more pictures of the pieces and the players using them. They also have detailed history of the designs featured so I would not want to repeat it here.
The wooden French Lardy design was also exported to the US in the 1940s-1970s by major game producers such as Plesantine Games, the Pacific Game company (marketed under the name Cavalier), as well as Drueke, Parker Bros and E.S. Lowe, with minor changes especially in the design of the Knight and Bishop.Here is an old French Staunton set which is a precursor of the later Lardy's.
The European Lardy's are usually sized at 3.75" going to even as large as 4.75" Kings. I managed to get 2 good 4.25" for a reasonable price (back in 2016). It came with a nice board (which I had ruined by doing a bad paint job on it).
They are different sets but both sourced from the UK
I treasured those which were made mainly for the 1974 Nice Olympiad so the sets came with the official logo. So far I had collected 3 such sets.
Then there were the Olive Wood versions for the Black pieces instead of the ebonised ones which had interesting eyes for the Knights. I found 3 of them in the German Ebay site and had them shipped back to Singapore with myGermany (a forwarding company) as these sets do not ship internationally.
Do join the chess set collector groups on Facebook as they have lots more pictures of the pieces and the players using them. They also have detailed history of the designs featured so I would not want to repeat it here.
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