A few Diderot pieces from a part set I purchased recently on ebay. note the 'mistake' the turner has made on the knight, which is the second from the right, thanks to Mr joost van Reij for the info. I still can't get it into my head that the 'tricorn hat' piece is a bishop. Another good pointer to fake designs is to see tricorns as knights inapropriately used in 16/17 th c? sets.
Expect to see the same kind of 'tear out' on the parting off on all the pieces. This shows that the turner used the same technique (and tool) to part the chess piece being made from the 'stock'.
Tear out like this is due to the parting tool having blunted corners, probably because he was on a price per set and didn't want to spend 'down' or unproductive time re-grinding tools.
showing the cambium layer where the turner, just made it fit (the material).
age cracks.
The black line arround the outside of the base is due to the piece being moved around a dirty chess board for a few years.
