Drueke's
American Made Chessmen
No. 23 Design Patent No. 128794
Once again, there's no manufacture date on this set. There's a little pamphlet inside that briefly tells how to play chess, but it has no date either. It's "form E 8-51-20M" but I don't know if ANY of those numbers is a year. 1951? 1920?
I did a search on this patent number but only found an improved wheel hub from 1872. I also found a Drueke cribbage set with the same patent number, so I've given up using this as a research tool; apparently other Drueke products are covered under the same patent. According to the history presented on Drueke.com, pre-1954 the first plastic molds were made and production was contracted out. In 1954 Drueke purchased their own plastic injection equipment. Other searches I've done include "drueke 23" "chess 23 red" etc. with results that usually are for 23" chess boards. Alright, so this set is relatively rare.
This set is medium size. It's smaller than tournament sets - the king is 2 3/8 inches tall, and is perfect for Chess in the Round (I don't like the chessmen that come with it and some of the squares are too small for a tournament set). Since Chess in the Round requires sixteen pawns, I'm always on the lookout for a duplicate of these chessmen. (More on that subject appears below.)
I can't tell for certian but I think these may be made of Bakelite, an early plastic.
I still would like a duplicate of the Red and Ivory version and while looking for it I found a black & ivory set. From this box we learn of other versions: 20 is Un-weighted. 22 is Weighted. 23 (the ones on this page) are Weighted and Felted. It also mentions imported French wood chessmen: 0 is Un-Weighted and 11 is Weighted and Felted. I haven't seen 0 or 11 yet so I can just assume they're the same design you see here. No colors are mentioned on the box so I think they hadn't yet decided to make the red set.
More Info: I found another red set for sale, which I thought was identical to the red set I already have. It is No. 24, not 23. The box is different, which is burgundy with a snap closure and wood divider instead of the individual cardboard holders of the other (no. 23) sets. The seller states that it is possibly bakelite and that it's from the 1940's. These claims aren't substantiated yet.
Once I got this set, I noticed a small difference in the shapes, very minor but not identical. It's most noticable in the tops of the queens; in set 23 the crown is sharper and more defined but in 24 they're more rounded and flatter. Difference in detail is also visible in the rooks.
I also noticed that the red is slightly more intense in No. 23. This could be meaningless; otherwise identical sets show color variation simply because of different batches of plastic or fluctuations in the formula used. Personally I don't think either of these sets are bakelite, although I'm definitely not an expert in bakelite identification. I only have two confirmed items that are bakelite and they have a more glassy "snap" sound when they're tapped against each other. (If you care, the bakelite items are the red dominoes and the WW II checker/chess pieces.)
What I think this means, as far as dates go, is that in 1954 Drueke started casting in-house and before 1954 casting was contracted out. I think this difference shows that they were cast from different molds or cast using different techniques and equipment. 23 is just a little more perfect and 24 may indicate that in-house casting was still new for Drueke. So assuming that the set numbers are chronological, No. 23 is probably pre-1954 and No. 24 is post-1954.
Set 24 is up for sale on eBay as of March 9, 2006, since I don't really need it.
The saga finally ends here. I have acquired a second set of No. 23 so I can finally play Chess in the Round in complete happiness. My OCD has been satisfied. Now all I need to find is a person to play it with! The newest acquisition is exactly like the one at the very top of this page, though the box top is in a little bit better condition. There's no need to add more pictures or update this page again, so there you have the complete adventure of the red Druekes.
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