Featured 3 Vintage Isle of Lewis Chess Pieces; Lookin' for More

Resin replicas, to be sure...but so evocative!
The pawn is marked BMPL; the other 2 are marked BM. I gotta find out who's marks those are. The originals are in the British Museum.
I can't imagine filling this onesy-twosy; I'll try to find a high-quality contemporary, or better yet a vintage, replica set complete. Costly, probably...but they're pretty special, so worth splashing on even if I never play them. Thanks for lookin'!

 

There was somebody in the past listing them on eBid.net

 

Thanks...I'll take a look, Terry!

 

Check the British Museum shop.

 

..."a newly identified piece, a "warder", the equivalent of a rook, was sold for £735,000 in July 2019"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen

 

The three most popular chess sets:

 

replacement pieces
SINGLE REPLACEMENT PIECES: Isle of Lewis Chess Pieces by Berkeley - Ru – Chess House

 

I really like them. Love the barley corn ones posted above too. Never come across them before.

1.e4

 

BMPL =British Museum Publications Ltd.

 

Tenniel's illustrations for Alice in Wonderland are based on Barleycorn pattern chess pieces.

 

Bingo!! That's where I'll find them, now, too...I hope.
Thanks, architrave, very much!

 

Definitely these are the official British Museum replicas and are cast 1:1 scale from the originals. We have a large collection of these pieces that we have collected over many years. The material used to cast has varied over the time as well as the antiqued finishing. You can still buy 5 or 6 different pieces directly from the museum’s gift shop. Ebay, Etsy are two good places to find them. All have Red or violet/red felt cushion except the newest ones which lack any cushion. Some say BM others BMPL. Some do not have markings at all. The older version from the 1960s-1980s are the best versions British Museum replicas and the best most accurate true to scale Lewis Chessmen pieces overall. All other 1:1 replicas being sold by small shops are castings of the BM castings. The quality and finishing really varies so beware when purchasing. Some knockoffs are even made from plaster and painted. These will chip very easily. Good hunting. BTW my Wife and I have seen the original Isle of Lewis Chessmen in both the British Museum and National Scotland Museum. She is from Norway, and some her Family is from Trondheim where these figures were made by Norse craftsmen. In Trondheim they excavated a Stave Church and found similar carved figures which now reside in a Norwegian museum we visited. Also some similar figures and carvings have been found in old Norse colonies in Ireland, Scotland as well as Norway and even Iceland. Medieval Experts and Scholars are still debating the origins but almost certainly they where made in Medieval Trondheim Norway which was the center of the Walrus Ivory and Whalebone trade during the time these were made.

 

So interesting (I'm half Norwegian heritage). I read a book about the Lewis Chessman where it was posited that the chessmen were carved from walrus bone by an Icelandic woman. Trondheim, at the time when the chessmen were made, was the bishopric for the Northern area: Iceland, Ireland, Scotland and parts of Scandinavia. There was a lot of trade and learning shared between these nations at the time. That the chess set was a gift for an important person is undoubtable. My brother, who lives in Scotland, and his wife visited the Isle of Lewis this past October.

 

My father, who was born in Norway, was often heard to say that the Scottish are nothing but ship-wrecked Norwegians.

 

HooHa! Wonder how that plays in Scotland!

In pic 3, far above, there appears an equal-arm cross on the warrior's shield. The way it's shown, with almost magically interleaved bars, must mean something significant. Do any of you know what that might be...Sound off; do please!

 

Well, there is a great deal of Norwegian ancestry throughout the north of the British Isles. South, there is more Danish. So my Dad wasn't far wrong, LOL! The interleaved bars are like Celtic knotwork.

 

Just to clarify... The originals are in the British National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, not the British Museum in London.

https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-c...h-history-and-archaeology/lewis-chess-pieces/

Debora

 

Not very well I suppose but the fact is Norse culture ruled/conquered much of Europe in the early Middle Ages and especially in Scotland.
I’ve heard the competing theories about the Chessmen origins. Iceland was part and parcel of the Norse empire at the time. The majority of historians and experts in this debate tend to side with the Trondheim origins. The pieces themselves were made by as many as five different craftsman judging by the different styles. The Ivory industry and a large number of trained artist/carvers resided in Trondheim in the 12th century. The Ivory trade was immense and thriving in Trondheim when the figures were made. We saw many exhibits talking about this timeframe and examples of the carving techniques when visiting Norge/Trondheim. Saw very similar artifacts to the Chessmen in Norge museums and historical sites. A mixture of Norse/Scandinavian and Celtic style with definite Viking themes etc. The bulk of the 93 Chessmen artifacts reside in the London Museum with 11 or so in the Scottish national museum. There are Chess sets made from both collections as well as several Hybrid sets using figures from both collections. We purchased an official set from the Scottish Museum when we visited in 2017. The pieces are unique to the collection in Scottish National Museum. A recent lone original Chessmen piece turned up in Scotland in 2019. It sold that year at auction for nearly a million USD. It previously belonged to a Scottish antique dealer who purchased it for 5 pounds sterling back in the early 1960s. There is rumored to be 4 more missing pieces floating around out in the wild. The treasure hunt is on! Here are a couple photos of some of our replica pieces from the British museum collection. I will try and post more once I find them. Most are still packed away from our last move. You can see several different finishes and materials used over the years. The early ones used a resin material and have a very nice simulated Ivory sheen colored finish that closely mimics the the actual figures. The latest ones use a Permastone material that is not as authentic looking as the older replicas. Cost cutting I suppose. I included a link to a YouTube video uploaded by The British Museum featuring Irving Finkel a Medieval curator at the museum. He discusses the Chessmen story as well as the use of his Chessmen set in the Harry Potter movies. Many informative Isle of Lewis Chessmen videos on YouTube uploaded by Chess enthusiasts. Lots to these little figures and that makes selecting which sets a bit confusing. If your goal is to get figures that are the closest to the real pieces then IMHO the older BM pieces are the best to collect