House of Marbles set

Saw this chess set on eBay, with a very low buy-it-now price and I couldn't resist getting it for the collection. Purely because it's so whimsical (as stated on the box) and different from anything else I have so far.

Both the very simple board and the pieces are made from painted wood.

I imagine this set is aimed more at children than adults, given the way the pieces are shaped and painted.

The pawns don't seem to be overly happy, but look at the face of the queen. She doesn't appear to have even the slightest idea as to where she is and what she's supposed to do ...

Whimsical set indeed!

Marble set

Open this box, and you'll see a velvet-covered inside, holding a set of marble chess pieces.

The set didn't come with a board, so to set it up for pictures, I used the board I also used for my Matador & Flamenco set

As you might expect, the pieces are quite heavy for their size.

I know nothing more about this set, where and when it was made, etc. So if anyone has any further information as to its origins ...

Indonesian (?) set

Saw this on eBay (where else?). Nicely-carved wooden box, which opens up to a chess board.

Pieces are kept inside the box, and are also carved from wood.

There is nothing in or on the box to suggest where the set was made, but from the style of the pieces, I strongly suspect they're Indonesian in origin.

Wherever they come from, definitely a unique addition to my collection!

Louis XIV set

This Louis XIV chess set kept popping up on eBay, and at some point, I just couldn't resist any more. Didn't come with a board, but I felt it would look good on the red wooden board from my Roman set.

Guess the set appealed to me because of the dynamic nature of especially the bishops and knights. Also, it's quite a chunky set, similar in that way to my Royal Beasts set. 

Not much else to say about it, I guess, but I do think it works well on this particular board.

Gwangsanghui

Not much is known about the origin and history of Janggi, or Korean chess. Some characteristics, such as the absence of the river, suggest it may represent an older form of Xiangqi (Chinese chess) rather than 'just' be a xiangqi variant.

Even less is known of Gwangsanghui, a larger Janggi variant other than that it appears to date from the 18th century. I got my information on this larger game here, and the initial layout of the board and pieces appears to be like this:

I was keen to make myself a gwangsanghui set, using glass pebbles for the pieces, and transparent perspex for the board.

Thought long and hard as to how to make the lines, and finally decided on painting them on the underside of the perspex. In order to do that, I first drew the board on a piece of cardboard, put that underneath the perspex ...

... and then started painting the lines, using the template underneath.

Bit of a tricky job, as I had no margin for error: it wouldn't be possible to 'erase' any mistake from the perspex. But all went fine!

I then added four glass pebbles to the board to serve as small 'feet'.

For the pieces, I cut out their symbols, and glued them underneath the glass pebbles.

And this is then what the full set looks like:

Very pleased with it! And the fact that the lines aren't perfectly straight adds something to the board, I think.

There can't be many gwangsanghui sets in the world, I reckon ....

Spear's set

You probably wouldn't think 'vintage' when you see a plastic chess set, but I consider this Spear's set to be close to vintage. Not sure when it was made and sold, but I reckon it's 40-50 years old (someone correct me if I'm wrong!).

The set doesn't come with a board, but I felt the pieces would nicely match the board that came with my pseudo-Italfama set.

The design of the pieces is more interesting than the bog-standard plastic pieces you can get everywhere for almost nothing. So a nice addition to the collection, I think.

Dollhouse xiangqi set

I saw this 'dollhouse' xiangqi set on eBay and I just had to get it!

Inside the little plastic box is a folded-up paper 'board', and the pieces, still connected. They needed separating, and some TLC to file away the rough edges as much as possible.

And to give you a sense of scale, a pound coin in-between ..

I wanted to have a board which was a bit nicer than the folded-up piece of paper, and decided on getting two semi-translucent Perspex discs. The idea was to have the paper board in-between those discs.

And this is then what the full set looks like:

The smallest set in the collection! Just had to take a picture of this dollhouse xiangqi set together with the 'generals' of my largest xiangqi set ...