![ukranian_chess_board](https://www.lewiscarroll.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ukranian_chess_board-300x237.jpg)
Check out this beautiful custom chess set, featured on the website English Russia. It seems to be a work in progress but, from the description, we gather that the grand scheme is for an ornately carved table concealing a glass chessboard and ivory pieces. Turning a handle shaped like a flamingo’s head will activate a mechanism that lifts the board out of the table and ready for play.
The work of an unnamed Ukrainian master ivory carver, each piece is a highly-detailed rendering of a Tenniel illustration – white players from Through the Looking-Glass and black players from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. See the website for pictures of the man at work and a longer description of the project. Let’s hope that pictures of the finished work make it online too.
![lion](https://www.lewiscarroll.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/lion_pawn.jpg)
![walrus_pawn](https://www.lewiscarroll.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/walrus_pawn.jpg)
It is my understanding that we cannot legally purchase Ivory in the U.S.
The Russian carve in Mammoth Ivory…the Wooly Mammothextinct for the last 30-40,000 years. Non endangered species. It can be sold and sent internationally without c CITES permit.
Elephant Ivory Antique ONLY can be sold and traded internationally (chess sets) with a CITES license and permit, showing when it came into country and also being exported.