Smooth Pocket set
Very smoothly finished small chessmen, which have a quite modernist look to them - actually it is a mini-compendium with draughts stones, and a board with nine-mens morris imprinted on the rear. But on the bottom of the rough wood case a dedication is pencilled, with the date of 1.2.1940! Certainly prewar WW2, made in Germany.
Tuscan Abstracts
Thanks to big alabaster deposits, fashioning handcrafted objects is craft with a millennarian tradition in Volterra in Tuscany, Italy. The opaque white material is coloured by a special process of soaking, gaining the most exotic colours. This set - king 76 mm - also is reminiscent of Yves Tanguy , has metal bands around the bottom, felts, and is most likely from the 60ies to 70ies. Alabaster sets from Volterra are exported worldwide, mainly by the house of Chiellini.







