Jaques Barleycorn, "set 24", 5.3"

Very impressive Jaques Barleycorn (a true Barleycorn!). As per figure 70 in Sir Alan Fersht's "Jaques and British Chess Company Chess Sets". Comparatively rare set, this would have been the top of the line for Jaques bone sets.

It was in pretty good condition when I acquired it, though the white king had had a poor repair to the base stem, which I restored to match the red king. The white queen was missing her feather finial, so I have crafted a new one using my usual methods. The photos show some of the stages of the restoration, including the moulding with Silligum and casting/carving with Milliput - I've also included a couple of photos of the newly moulded pieces before colour matching and patination. 

Fortunately the red king had also had a (better) stem repair which unscrewed beautifully to allow me to remove the mould without cutting. I had to cut the white king repair off near the bottom of the king's body, leaving enough to act as a "key" for the Milliput - I think the old repair was made out of a bone pawn from another set. One interesting quirk which I found whilst making the repairs is that the white queen's disk base is made of ivory - it is the only piece of ivory in an otherwise entirely bone set. I am presuming this is from a relatively contemporary repair, but I also wonder if it might not be inconceivable that the Jaques turner just picked up the wrong slice of "bone looking" substance. Whatever the truth is, I am very grateful to the owner at the time for repairing the set and not throwing it away - perhaps an indication that this was a valuable set even many years ago.