Metal & Malachite set

A number of years ago, when I got myself a board for Star Trek Tridimensional chess, I found a small set of classical style metal pieces to use on this board (and I quite liked the result of combining a futuristic board with classical pieces). The set also came with a circular board made of malachite, which I then put aside, and lost track of.

It so happens that I stumbled across it again, in the back of a cupboard!

So time to put the pieces on their home board again?

After the wooden travel set I got from one of my PhD students, this malachite board with metal pieces is the smallest in my collection. And the board, in all its malachite glory, is one of the most beautiful boards I have.

As you read this, the pieces are back on the tridimensional board, but there's of course nothing stopping me from using them on either board, as and when required.

Royal Beasts set

The Royal Beasts, aka Queen's Beasts, are a series of heraldic statues created for the queen's coronation in 1953. I got a set of Royal Beasts chess pieces as a birthday present, from the same Etsy shop as I got my Lewis chess pieces from.

This is the king; they are quite big pieces!

My idea for a board for this Royal Beasts chess set was a permanent board in the garden, so I got myself a large stone tile plus light and dark mosaic stone tiles.

A large flower pot was weighted down with sand, and placed in a nice corner of the garden, to act as a base for the board.












Stone mosaic tiles were then fixed to the large stone tile.

Board is ready to receive the pieces!

I think it looks really good, with the stone board nicely matching the pieces. I am not planning to keep the pieces out in the garden all the time, but occasionally they'll be allowed out to play. If I can take any interesting photos of the pieces 'in the wild', I'll create another blog post. I've already seen a cat contemplating its opening move.

Maybe a pigeon will want to come and play as well? Watch this space!

Four Seasons chess set - autumn

Following the completion of the board for my Four Seasons chess set at the end of the summer, the next phase, autumn, would obviously involve the pieces. And what really represents autumn as a season? Yes, things that drop off trees in the autumn!

So I collected pine cones, conkers, beech nuts, sycamore 'wings', acorns and walnuts, and I'm going to use those to create the various pieces.

To see what they will look like, you'll have to wait until the set is completed over the winter!

Alabaster set

Have you heard of a Japanese art form called 'kintsugi'? If not, it's used in pottery. When a piece of pottery is broken and repaired, rather than try and make the repairs as invisible as possible, they are actually highlighted with gold. I really like the philosophy behind it, giving a piece of pottery a new lease of life, but in a way that shows the piece has had a life already. Sort of being proud of your scars and not ashamed to show them, as they are part of who you are and the life you have had.

Why do I mention kintsugi in a blog post on an alabaster chess set? Well, it all started with a very nice alabaster set, made by C A&A in Italy, listed on eBay, including the marble board. The buy-it-now price was very low, so I jumped on it; pieces and board duly arrived, in two separate boxes

Unfortunately, the seller naively thought that simply putting some 'fragile' tape around a cardboard box would prevent it being kicked about in the postal system. The pieces were fine, as they had some protection inside their own box, but, not being protected by anything like bubble wrap or polystyrene, the marble board arrived in a number of larger and smaller pieces ....

The seller was very apologetic and immediately offered a full refund. In the end, as I was keen to keep the (undamaged) pieces, we agreed on partial refund, just for the board.

But of course, I now had pieces that needed a board .... two options, essentially: find a replacement board, or somehow repair the broken one. Another marble board that matched the pieces in size and colour proved elusive, and then I remembered kintsugi ... how about repairing the board kintsugi-style? If it didn't work out, I still had the option to keep looking for a replacement board.

As I wanted to make sure the glued-together board was supported in some way, I got a square of plywood and spray-painted it gold. I glued the pieces of the board to each other and to the plywood base.

I then used gold paint (rather than actual gold, I have to admit) to highlight the breaks, as well as the places where the lacquer had come off.

Done! It looks pretty good, I think, and the gold paint highlights the cracks and other damage in a very positive way, giving the board a character it didn't have before it broke.

So ... time to put the pieces on the board.

The full set definitely has more character now than ever before; just what kintsugi is all about .... Although I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying I should break all boards before adding them to the collection, this set surely has a unique place in it.

Matryoshka set

Matryoshka (or babushka) chess sets pop up on eBay regularly, with prices varying widely. I always liked the look of them, and wanted to add one to the collection, so waited until one was listed for a price I was willing to pay.

This particular set was new, and came with a carved red/white wooden board, with the pieces neatly stored inside.

Pieces are nicely made and painted; I think the knights are done with a bit of humour.

I felt it would be fitting to designate this set as one for a historical variant played in Russia until the 19th century. In this particular 'Russian chess', the queen is an 'amazon', a piece which combines the moves of a queen with that of a knight.

Shogi travel set

I'd completely forgotten about this Shogi travel set until I found it in the back of a drawer. Can't remember when or how I got it, but, being a chess set, it deserves a place in the collection.

The board is metal, and the pieces are plastic with a small embedded magnet.

As you'd expect from a travel set, it's pretty small: the board measures 18 x 19 cm.

Skyline set

Skyline chess is a luxury chess set, with the pieces taking the form of iconic buildings in either London, Paris, Dubai, New York or San Francisco (and more cities in the pipeline). The set comes in several editions; the cheapest costs £95, while the 'luxury bronze' edition will set you back just shy of £3000 ...

I did manage to get my hands on a basic London edition, and I can assure you I paid a lot less for it than £95!

The board it comes with is a simple cardboard fold-up board, but I wanted to create a bit more of a classy board for it, without it costing me the £140 price tag of the official Skyline marble board.

So I first got myself a marble-effect ceramic tile, as a sample from a tile company.

Secondly, I ordered two sets of small ceramic tiles, in two colours, 'victorian white' and 'victorian red'.

The small tiles were glued to the large marble tile, such that the playing area is 45 degrees rotated relative to the 'mother board'.

To finish off the board, I wanted to do something with London's coat of arms, given that the set shows the London skyline.

And I found large stickers sporting it on eBay!

So, with the board completed, time to add the pieces.

The pieces are made from plastic, but they are high quality, and weighted as well, which is something you don't see in cheap plastic pieces. That does show the designers of Skyline chess really aim for the higher end of the market.

The pieces include Big Ben, the London Eye, the Gherkin, the Shard and One Canada Square, Canary Wharf. Terraced houses function as pawns. And if you wonder why the Big Ben rooks look so puny, the pieces are done more or less to scale (actually, if they had really been done to scale, Big Ben would be even smaller than it is now).

I feel I've got myself a fitting and unique board for my Skyline set, and at a fraction of the price of the official luxury boards!