Well now there's: 140896557276 identical to what I think is my older, better soapstone set with the Foochow credit and a range of dates given which looks attractive like something I'd love to add to my page and say my set was c. 1870-1890. 😛 But obviously Tim is trying to sell a chess set. I'll be interested to see how it does if only because it's the same set as one of mine, and it's a set I've always thought was under-valued. Sure soapstone is not ivory, but a set with that quality of carving in wood or bone would be valued, yet these sets have often seen ignored.
Both of these sets, of course, also look nigh-identical to set in Windor Magazine 1902 being described as Indian, and Mick has a point about that date being so close to the likely date of manufacture it seems unlikely they'd get the country of manufacture wrong.
I did recently talk to Luke Honey about: http://www.tykroll.com/chess/dragonsg.html my newer (almost certainly) and less fine (my opinion) version of the set and he thinks Chinese and closer to 1960. I might tend to agree about the dating... certainly I think the set must be later than the ones above. Also those knight heads do look really *really* Chinese to me, and not Indian at all. The other thing Luke said was there was cross-over between carvers in both countries, so it's possible this kind of design (like "Burmese" ivory sets) comes from both India and China. It does seem like rather a "convenient" answer, making it so everyone can be right... but also it might be the case. ?
Ty
