Portable chess sets

I stumbled upon a treasure trove of chess sets tucked away in the back of a cupboard a few days ago. These were foldable, two-dimensional chess sets designed for playing chess or analyzing games while on the move. They used to be incredibly popular in the past before the advent of smartphones with chess apps. Nowadays, these portable chess sets have become a bit of a relic.

In the picture, you can see three of these sets. The one at the bottom right is a souvenir from the 29th Chess Olympiad held in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1990. It comes in a leather casing, and the pieces are small chess figurines affixed to transparent, flat plastic that can be pushed into tiny slots on the leather board.

The set at the bottom left is undoubtedly of Soviet origin, with Cyrillic characters on the cover. Unfortunately, I can't read Cyrillic, so I'm not sure what it says.

The topmost set was a souvenir from a flight with Singapore Airlines a long time ago.

A little update on these sets: I also bought two Portland cardboard chess sets a while back. One set had a single chess board, while the other featured two chess boards laid out side-by-side but came with only one set of pieces. It's possible that the missing set had found its way elsewhere, but I can't quite recall.

The original Portland cardboard set from England was made by Robinson & Sons Ltd of Chesterfield and sold through CHESS Sutton Coldfield. Decades later, when I acquired the double chess board version, I bought it from Ignatius Leong's chess outfit known as National Chess Enterprises. By then, he might have acquired the rights to produce the Portland set in Singapore.

A second update: It turns out that the Portland cardboard chess set has quite an interesting history. The original manufacturer was Robinson & Sons Ltd of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, England, a family business founded in 1839 by John Bradbury Robinson (1802-1869). Initially, they made pill boxes but later became a significant packaging and healthcare business.

John Bradbury Robinson had two sons, and one of them was named Charles Portland Robinson (1844-1916). The cardboard chess set bore the Portland name, which seems to be connected to Charles Portland Robinson. The Portland Works, an extension of their manufacturing plants, was opened in 1920.

Victor Owen Robinson, another member of the family, set up the Chesterfield Chess Club in 1924 and became its vice-president. He worked in the family business and became Chairman of Robinson & Sons Ltd in 1945. Here's where Marcel Duchamp, a famous French painter and chess player, enters the story.

Duchamp had created a leather pocket chess set in 1943 during World War II and had plans to produce and market them to chess enthusiasts. The special feature of his design was that the pieces would remain in place even when the set was moved about during travel.

After the war, Victor Owen Robinson came across Duchamp's innovative idea and saw the potential for mass-producing a cardboard version of this flat, foldable chess set. The Philadelphia Museum of Art suggests that the first edition of Victor Owen's cardboard chess sets appeared in 1950. They were likely named after the factory where they were made, the Portland Works.

Please note that this is my interpretation, and nothing is definitive. I could still be mistaken in my narrative and conclusions, and I welcome any new information that might shed more light on this chess set's history.