Jerger "Chess Pieces" series is represented by three different designs

1. ‘King and Queen‘: the most rare clock among three, produced after the ww2 (very late 40s early 50s) and known only for a guillotine type of flag.

2. ‘Bishop and Knigt‘: should be the nicest clock, as a carving of the knight accomplished with a real passion! Known for a variety of different movements as well as both flag types: guillotine (earlier version) and a standard one (later version). Photo: Bruno Parma vs. Borislav Ivkov (Hoogoven, 1963).

3. ‘Rook and Pawn‘: the logical continuation of the Jerger ‚King and Queen‘ and ‚Bishop and Knight‘ series. Manufactured in 1960s. Production scale is not known exactly; based on the market availability it should be most common (out of three). For several years 'Rook and Pawn' was a clock of choice at the Hoogoven (nowadays Tata-Steel) chess tournament, which trditionally takes place in Wijk aan Zee (1969: Botwinnik vs. Ostojic; 1970: Kurajica vs. Taimanov).

Typical representatives of the Jerger clocks from 50s: ‘Hearts’ faces with the ’Gilloutine’ flags. Known in a variaty of face designs (silver, classical etc) as well as several movements generations. Gossips say that this type of chess clock (similar to the bunch of the subsequent 10+ variaties with the conventional flag) got it name ´Olympia´ dedicated to the Chess Olympiad 1958 in München, however plausibility or hard facts are still missing: it appeared on the market almost 10 years earlier than 1958 and was not used on the mentioned Olympiad. Photos:

1: unknown players, Uddevalla Chess Club 50th anniversary (1961).

2: unknown player, Germany (1955).

Shortly after the production of Jerger ‘Hearts’ with the ‘Gilloutine’ flags, Jerger presented the next generation of ‘Hearts’ clocks, already with the conventional flags.

There are at least 5 known types of Jerger ‘Hearts’, where the difference touches only the dials design (keeping all other characteristics pretty the same).

Technical identity of the clocks lead to the conclusion that all of them were produced in the same time period (mid-late 1950th?). Curiously, that the one with Roman numerals (labeled ‘Foreign’) might be still slightly older than the others (labeled ‘west Germany’). Photo evidences:

Roman: Erno Gereben (Beverwijk, 1961)

Arabic: Paul Keres vs Gedeon Barcza (Oberhausen, 1961)

Black: Fridrik Olafsson vs Wolfgang Uhlmann (Beverwijk, 1961)

Pink: remains under research :)

This is a very nice artisanal copy of the Jerger clock. Design and geometry are fully identical to the original one from 1960th: wooden case is produced with an extreme quality (it looks even finer as the traditional one), German movements are similar to those used in the BHBs, explicitly added second hands and even original buttons and flags. The only thing which remains unclear is the reason to create this piece of art: from financial perspective it was definitely cheaper to acquire an original Jerger or similar.

Following the successful production of the Jerger Olympia ‘Hearts’ series, company made a step forward towards a design usability and increased the clock face, allowing better visualization and respectively improvement of the players feeling during the game. All other components remained the same as by Jerger ‘Hearts’ version. This model had a widespread usage, for example on Hoogovens-Tournament in Beverwijk (Paul Keres vs. Bruno Parma, 1964) or in Wijk aan Zee (Valentina Kozlovskaja vs. Vreeken Bouwman-Corrie, 1968).

This Jerger is a twin brother to the previous model with just a slight clock face adjustment: it displays only even numbers (2,4,6 etc). This model could be recognised from the game between Nona Gaprindashvili (left, bending over, USSR/Georgia) vs. Corrie Vreeken-Bouwman (the Netherlands)-smoking, Hoogovens tournament (10 women), 21 January 1963.

Photo: US Prodigy Stuart Rachels, early 1980xx.

A Jerger model for the visually impaired people. Key feature of such clocks is a missing front glass, which provides a possibility to “touch” the clockface and “read” the required information. All numbers are supported by physical pointers, which enable a better guidance on the clockface; both hour- and minute- hands as well as the flag (which has a very special form) could be also touched to get a feeling regarding the current time. Based on the producer stamp, this clock has been manufactured in 1989.

Jerger Chess Champion belongs to the latest product line of Jerger clocks (together with a classical, rapid and blitz versions). Being under the costs pressure, Jerger managed in the late 70th to bring a smaller and cheaper plastic clock to the market (44$ Jerger CC vs. 51$ Jerger Olympia (1983, US) while still keeping the same W6 movements in both models). Advertised in US since 1982 (Chess Life). Photo: occasional chess player in the Tennisclub Brotdorf (Germany).

Pretty similar to the previous Jerger Chess Champion model, just with the focus on rapid games, mainly between 15 minutes (when the minute hand does the full circle) and 1h (when the hour hand does the full circle). Everything else (geometry, material and movements) remain the same.