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Jaques Staunton Tournament & Club Chess Sets

(49990 / 49960)

The most popular design for Chess pieces in the world today is Staunton, invented in 1847 by John Jaques of London.  The design was an immediate hit when it became available in 1849 and has went on to become the Chess standard - the familiar and widespread pattern we know today.   Jaques of London continues to be the leading manufacturer of quality Chess equipment and their Chess sets are used in  most tournaments. 

Jaques produce the following Staunton design sets in Boxwood for club and tournament use.  The three sets are a similar size but the higher the price, the more finely detailed and intricately carved are the pieces. Note that none of these sets feature the red Jaques marks on the King's Rook and Knight.

Jaques Staunton 49990The Staunton Tournament set (Jaques 49990) is the leading production tournament chess set. Hand-turned, highly detailed boxwood weighted pieces are set upon woollen baize bases. Presented in a beauftiful hand-made Mahogany case with a lock. King is 90mm (3.5 inch) high with a 40mm (1.5 inch) base

Click on the picture to enlarge.


Jaques Staunton 49960The Staunton Club set (Jaques 49960) is also made from hand-turned boxwood and the pieces are weighted and set upon woollen baize bases. King is approx. 95mm (3.75 inches) high with a 40mm (1.5 inch) base. It is presented in a hand-made Mahogany box with brass catches.

Click on the picture to enlarge.



Boards must be purchased separately.

Sorry - the products on this page are discontinued.


 

Chess Boards

To decide which board will best accompany your chess pieces, please see our rough guide to chess piece sizes.

Jaques themselves produce two styles of chequerboard - their standard inlaid chessboard and their premium Chequerboard - the Staunton chessboard with a raised outer border.

Jaques chequerboards and boards from other leading manufacturers can be found on our Chessboards page.

 

 

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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.