Nigerian thorn carving set

I regularly post pictures of made or acquired chess sets, often with links to this blog, on my Facebook page. A friend of mine from the kite-flying community must have seen those, because he contacted me to ask if I was interested in a wee chess set, hand-made by someone in Nigeria. He wasn't using it, it was just collecting dust, so ...

Obviously I said "yes"!

The board is made of wood, and the pieces are carved from the thorns of a particular tree:

Thorn carving is a traditional Nigerian art form, and the material the thorns are made of is soft enough to lend itself to being carved. 

Two colours of thorn material, light brown and dark brown are used for the pieces.

I really should mention the name of the guy who made the set (or at least the name that was on the back of the board): Lawrence Ajibula.

Muppets set

The latest in my subcollection of 'fictional' chess sets: The Muppets!

The set features many of the key characters from the show: Rizzo the Rat acts as pawns, Statler and Waldorf as rooks, Animal and The Great Gonzo as knights, Fozzie the Bear and the Swedish Chef as bishops, and, of course, Miss Piggy as queen and Kermit as king. 

Really glad I managed to find it on eBay, as I'd been looking for it for ages!

Glass and gold xiangqi set

I've seen this xiangqi set on the internet with widely-varying asking prices, some well over £100. Now what you ask and what you get are two very different things of course, but it did look like a really nice set. A price of £100 was way above what I was willing to pay, but when I saw one on eBay with a very reasonable buy-it-now price ....

The board folds open to show a gold-coloured metal playing surface, with storage space for the glass pieces.

Once the pieces are placed on the board, the whole does really look nice.

Luxury set in my collection, for sure!

Art Deco set

Saw this Art Deco porcelain set on eBay, for very little. And it really mean very little. The reason given for the low 'buy-it-now' price was that some of the pieces were 'damaged'. But all pieces were present, and the pictures on the listing showed very little damage, so I took the punt ....

The set fits nicely on my 'Kasparov' board, which I also used for my replica ANRI Space Age set. And as to damage, one rook and one knight have indeed suffered damage and were repaired. The repairs are clearly visible if you look closely, but it really doesn't detract from the set as it is, so my punt paid off!

I have no idea as the provenance or age of this set, so if anyone reading this can enlighten me ...

Four xiangqi sets on a bamboo board

Some time ago, I bought a bamboo board which had the lines for go on one side, and for xiangqi on the other. 

The 'go side' has already been used for Alea Evangelii, but, clearly, the 'xiangqi side' had to be used as well!

Over time, I collected four different xiangqi sets that, in my opinion, work well on the bamboo board. First one is a wooden set which I got from Masters Traditional Games. Set comes in a nice box, and consists of good quality wooden discs.

Second set I got off eBay, and is made of honey onyx. 

The third set is made of acrylic, and I got it from Amazon; again, the set comes in a nice box

And then the final of the four sets, also off eBay, made from porcelain, and coming in a 'wire cage box'.

Four nice additions to my collection of xiangqi sets, and I have no doubt there will be more sets in the future that fit well on the bamboo board.

ChessPlus set

Recently, I stumbled across a chess variant called ChessPlus, and couldn't resist buying myself a copy. The game comes in a sturdy cardboard box ...

... and the board is a simple fold-out cardboard one.

At first glance, the game doesn't appear to be different from FIDE chess. Same 8 x 8 board size, same types of pieces, which all have the same moves. 

So what then makes the game different? If you look at the pieces in more detail, you notice that, apart from the king, they have a front and back side. And the backside of all pieces is identical. And that goes right at the heart of what ChessPlus is ....

In ChessPlus, pieces can combine! 

So a player can move one if its pieces to a square already occupied by another of its pieces, and that move combines the two pieces. The new combination piece moves as one piece, with the powers of both original pieces. It can split apart again when one of the two original pieces moves away on its own. Combine a pawn with a queen, and getting that pawn to promotion all of a sudden becomes a lot easier!

Downside of combining pieces is that when a combination piece is captured, both original pieces are captured .... 

'Cold War' set

I saw this 'cold war' chess set on eBay, for very little. It didn't come with a board, but I felt it would fit well on the board that came with my pseudo-italfama set.

The pieces are made of wood, and painted in the colours and symbols of the Soviet Union and the United States.

All I could find on the internet on this set suggests it may date from the 1950s, which would make sense from a 'cold war' perspective. 

If anyone reading this knows a bit more about its history, please let me know!