Ebony xiangqi set

Look for xiangi sets on eBay, and you come across some really expensive set, made from oxhorn, bronze, or copper; the most expensive one I saw was £899, but I'm sure there must be even more expensive sets around.

Seeing these sets really did make me want to add a more high end set to my collection, but without paying silly money, of course. Searching around, I came across this set made from ebony, and felt that would be a nice birthday present!

Definitely the nicest of my xiangqi sets!

Spartan Chess set

Spartan Chess is a chess variant which emerged from the idea that if two armies meet for a battle in real life, those armies aren't necessarily equal in terms of their divisions, strength, etc. In Spartan Chess, one side (the Persian army) has the traditional pieces, whereas the other side (the Spartan army) has different pieces, with different movements, plus two kings.

I'm sure there was a lot of play-testing to arrive at a balanced game!

When I ordered the pieces for my 'Alien' set, something went wrong with the initial order, and, once all was resolved, I ended up with two sets. And that gave me the impetus to use that other set for creating my own Spartan Chess set.

I already had a board I got off eBay some time ago, and felt that would serve well as a board for my Spartan Chess set. 

So I ordered a cheap set of plastic Staunton pieces, of the same size as the 'alien' pieces. In keeping with the colours of the board, I painted the Staunton pieces gold, and the 'alien' pieces metallic green.

Of course, that only used up half of the two sets; I still had one Staunton side and one 'alien' side. Of the four colours present on the board, I used up the colours of the squares (gold and metallic green); the edges of the board provide me with two more colours .... Of course, you see where this is going, right? So I pained the two remaining sets metallic grey and metallic red, thereby creating a second set of Spartan Chess pieces.

And that means I could play Spartan Chess with 'white' or 'black' for either the Persian or the Spartan army!

Chinese pieces - 'mahjong' board

For quite a while, I have had this set of Chinese pieces. It came without a board, and I'd been looking for a board that I felt would fit the pieces. Or make a fitting board myself.

And then I saw this board on eBay and felt it would fit the pieces very well. The 'white' squares remind me a bit of mahjong, which is why I call this a 'mahjong board'.

Putting the pieces on the board; I do feel they look well together!

Bakelite St George set

If you're familiar with xiangqi, you'll know that it is played with flat discs bearing the pieces' Chinese characters, rather than with three-dimensional figurine pieces as is the case for FIDE chess.

And if you're playing xiangqi, you'll probably agree with me it feels strange to be playing the game with three-dimensional figurine pieces. My collection does include two such xiangqi sets: one I bought, having terracotta army type pieces, and one I made myself, basically having Staunton type pieces. 

But what about the opposite? What about a set for FIDE chess having flat discs with symbols as pieces? Such sets definitely exist, and one which is listed on eBay quite regularly is a 'St George' set from the 1930s, with the discs made from bakelite.

The set I got didn't come with a board, but it looks fine on a wooden board with carved edges I had lying around.

The 'white' pieces are brown with some white highlighting, whereas the 'black' pieces are black with red highlighting.

Seeing a FIDE chess set with flat discs feels just as strange as seeing a xiangqi set with three-dimensional pieces ...

Leather xiangqi set

This eBay listing of a leather xiangqi set stood out for several reasons to me. First of all, it came in a nice leather 'tube' closed by a zipper:

Secondly, the board was quite elaborate:

And, thirdly, I really liked the pieces, again made from leather, and basically 'sewn' together, while still being quite substantial:

Really nice addition to the collection!

Dr Who set

I grew up with Doctor Who as a kid in the 1970s. Given that, Tom Baker will always be the Doctor for me. Nevertheless, I was really pleased the series was resurrected in 2005. 

When I saw this Doctor Who chess set on eBay, it was clear it had to be part of my collection!

The board is the usual simple cardboard board, and the pieces contain pictures of a range of characters from the recent series in a rather unusual way. The box refers to them being 'animated'; I'll come back to that ...

On the 'baddies' side (silver-grey tops), the pieces include Cybermen, a Weeping Angel as queen, and a Dalek as king.

The Doctor's side (blue tops) includes the Tardis and River Song, and has Amy Pond as queen and the Doctor (obviously) as king.

So what about the pieces being 'animated'? They have what's called 'lenticular animation', which means that the picture appears to move and change as you see it from different angles. 

I can't capture this effect in a few pictures; sorry!

Alien set

Saw this 'Alien' set for sale on eBay, and I really liked the weird and, well, alien shapes. So ...

Felt it would look good on the board that came with my wood-and-metal set.

The pieces are 3D-printed and, while they really do look alien, their shapes still resemble traditionally-shaped pieces. It's not difficult to tell which pieces are the rook, knight and bishop, and queen and king are also easily recognisable.

To make a pretty short story even shorter: I'm quite pleased with this addition to the collection!