Description
Russian Chessmen in Ornate Board Box.
This is an unusual boxed Russian chess set housed in a very ornately carved storage box. The King stands 3-3/4″ tall and has a 1-0” diameter base. The pieces are unweighted. Typical of many Russian chessmen designs, the Bishops lack miter cuts and the Kings, Queens and Bishops have opposite-colored finials. The heavily carved storage box serves both as a chessboard when opened and provides storage for the chessmen by opening the two flaps on either end. The chessmen and the storage box are in like-new condition.
The text carved into the ornately decorated storage box/board reads: Königsberg (founded in 1255) on one side and Kaliningrad in Cyrillic characters on the other. The number “750” also appears on the box. Königsberg was an old Prussian city ( King’s Mountain). The Soviets occupied the city after WWII in 1945 and renamed it Kaliningrad in 1946 in honor of Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin. The number 750 might signify the 750th anniversary of the founding of Königsberg in 1255. That would suggest that the set was made in the year 2005. This is only speculation.
