Jaques Staunton "Pre-Zukertort" Club set c1870

An uncommon full-Club size boxwood and ebony "pre-Zukertort"* set from circa 1870-75.  The set is very solid and chunky, compared to many of the design variations produced by Jaques, and has developed a quite wonderful patina (see final photo for a comparison of proportions to a Broadbent club size, pre-Hartson small club, Anderssen tournament and Tarrasch library set).  Kings stand just over 4.25" tall, with the black king weighing in at a hefty 129g.

The set is housed in a bespokely made carry case - I suspect an old Victorian artist's box was repurposed to allow easier transportation.  At first glance I thought the fitting was simply made with modern foam, but no!  A craftsman (or very talented amateur) has cut the precise shapes of the pieces out of a piece of plywood, covered it with baize, and then attached strips of metal to the back, each strip being carefully covered with hand-sewn baize and conformed to the profile of the piece to be housed in that particular hole.  Quite a task, and beautifully executed!  It is a joy to open the case and to be presented with the entire set laid out before you (unlike the Jaques fitted boxes, which contained two layers for the pieces).  How old is the case?  To my eye, I would not be surprised if the case was made not very long after the set was first acquired. 

*Frank Camaratta described a similar set on his website as "pre-Zukertort".  Frank, along with Robert Stoller, came up with a shorthand way of describing the particular design of a Jaques set by reference to the names of great chess players/champions, referred to as the "Camaratta Codex".  The 17 names in the Codex are not enough to cover all of the subtle variations in knight designs, so sometimes additional codifiers are required - "pre" in this case.