A couple of years ago, I got an incomplete soapstone set plus board for almost nothing. I used some of the pieces as additional pieces for several soapstone sets, but the board remained unusued.
Chess Creations & Collection
Saturday, February 11, 2023
Marble and onyx set
Friday, December 16, 2022
Mini xiangqi set
Mini xiangqi is a smaller version of xiangqi, invented by Shigenobu Kusumoto in 1973 or 1974. Compared to xiangqi itself, it has no river, no elephants, and no guards. It does still have a palace, which limits the movement of the king, as it does in xiangqi itself.
The initial array of the pieces in mini xiangqi is like this:
Why do I bring up this smaller xiangqi variant? Well, some time ago, I got my hands on a wooden xiangqi set, with the pieces similar to, but smaller than those of my varnished set.
Rather than use the paper board provided with the set, or make a board myself, I thought it would be fun to use it for mini xiangqi (simply leave out the elephants and guards) and create a board for that.
That board consisted of a piece of thin plywood, on which I drew the initial lines.
All that's missing now is the pieces; note the absence of elephants and guards.
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Glass-on-velvet xiangqi set
Got this xiangqi set off eBay.
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Jurassic Park set
I'd seen this Jurassic Park chess set for sale on Amazon, and popping up on eBay plenty of times, but always for prices way above what I was willing to part with. Until one day quite recently ...
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Football chess
As with so many of the chess sets in my collection, I saw this American Football set on eBay, for not very much at all.
Sunday, September 11, 2022
More basic xiangqi sets
Over time, I've picked up a bunch of basic xiangqi sets, and posted on a bunch of them here. Since then, I've added a couple more to the collection, so let me show these to you now.
First up is a very cheap basic set, with a plastic film as board, and plastic pieces with metallic red / green writing.
Then there is an other magnetic portable set, this time with pieces shaped like small flat stones.
Another magnetic travel set, smaller than the one above, and with simple round yellow pieces
In Vietnam, xiangqi is called Co Tuong. According to one source, Co Tuong is identical in every way to xiangqi, but another source states it is 'mostly similar'. I've never come across any source specifying how Co Tuong differs from xiangqi, so my assumption is that it indeed is the same game under a different name. Unless I see evidence to the contrary, that is ...
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Wizard-dragon set
Not much I can say about this particular 'wizard and dragons' set. Sets identical or very similar to this pop up on eBay every once in a while (the design of the dragons/pawns varies between sets), so there came a point the set was added to my collection. It didn't come with a board, but I felt it looked good on the red wooden board that originally came with my Roman set, and which I also used for my Louis XIV set.