Game Clocks
(for Chess, Go etc.)

High quality chess timer with a precision German-made movement in a natural beech wood case. The mechanism is mechanical (wind-up) and the fittings are brass.

This is a large clock that is tilted back at a slight angle giving players a better view of the clock faces.

Game Clock - Texma Natural Beechwood (Tilted)

Approx dimensions: 16.5 x 9.5 x 4.5cm

Jaques Game Clock - Mahogany framed
Price includes delivery within Eng/Wales.

Approx dimensions: 22 x 12 x 6cm

German companies have long been regarded as the best quality chess clock makers and Garde clocks are often thought to be the best of the lot. This natural beechwood mechanical clock is made for tournament play.

Dimensions are 22 x 12 x 6cm.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Game Clock - Garde Natural Beechwood

The first recorded chess tournament was held in London, 1851 and was won by Howard Staunton, the player who lent his name to the familiar Staunton pattern chess sets originally produced by Jaques of London.  It wasn't long before serious games began to take intolerably long which led to the introduction of mechanical clocks in 1867 to restrict the time between moves. 

A single clock proved unwieldy and eventually the Veenhoff double-faced push-button clock made an appearance in 1900. This design went on to become the defacto standard clock for chess and other serious board games such as Go and Draughts.    A typical Chess tournament allowance is fifteen moves per hour.

The Origin of Chess

A great deal has been written about the origins of chess and there is still a lot of debate on the subject. The earliest clear ancestor of chess is shaturanga or chaturanga which was invented by a 6th century Indian philosopher. It was a battle between four armies each under the control of a Rajah (king), two players being loosely allied against the other two and and each containing 4 corps - Infantry, Cavalry, Elephants and Boatmen. The board of 64 squares used for shaturanga, was borrowed from an earlier game called ashtapada, which was a race game played in ancient India.

Under Hindu law, gambling became forbidden early on in the Hindu civilisation and, to avoid the gambling laws, shaturanga players dispensed with the dice. Another early modification was the merging of the allied armies into a single army making the game a two player form and duplicating the pieces, both developments which have survived until today. Other changes also occurred and the resulting game was called shatranj. 

There are three versions of the story of arrival of shatranj in Europe - did it come from the Saracens via Spain, from the Byzantine empire as a present to Charlemagne or was it brought back from the Middle East by Knights returning from the Crusades? Nonetheless in Europe, the game developed into modern European chess now played worldwide while in China, Japan, Burma, Thailand and Korea, other variants became just as popular.

You can learn more about the History of Chess from The Online Guide to Traditional Games.