The Chess Store Blog

What Makes a Good Chess Set?

There’s a lot more to making a good chess set than you would imagine. It starts with a raw piece of wood or maybe even an entire log and culminates in 32 finished chess pieces that have weights inside and pads on the bottom. A tremendous amount of work is required to make even the simplest chess set and times that by ten for the fancier chess sets. Pieces are individually turned on a lathe one at a time and the knights are hand carved with grinding tools, so it's not automatic that a good chess set pops out at the end of the process. Without going into the minutia from our quality documents, we would like to share with you the general characteristics you should find, or not find, on a good chess set.

A good or even great chess set is not dependent on how complex or intricate the design is. Our German Knight chess set is terrific for what it is – a good quality, affordable wood chess set for playing the everyday game of chess at home. It’s probably not the chess set you would want to display on an expensive chess board to dress up the décor in your living room but it’s a great chess set for playing. So keep in mind a good chess set is one that fits your needs and one that you just simply like.

Starting from the wood up, a good chess set must be made from a very hard and dense wood such as sheesham (golden rosewood), boxwood, rosewood, ebony, red sandalwood, or padauk. These woods make up nearly all of the good quality wood chess sets in the world, all of which come from India. Soft wood such as pine or wood with an open grain such as oak are not suitable for making chess sets.

The color of the wood should be consistent within the set. For example, a rosewood chess set should not have a mix of dark brown pieces with the more typical orange-burgundy colored pieces.  Mixing two different colors looks odd and can appear as though the pieces are made from totally different types of wood, even though they are not. The only wood that is almost never a problem is ebony – black is black.

A good chess set will be in good condition. You will not find pieces that are cracked, broken, dented, scratched, or chipped. Pieces should be sanded smooth so there are no visible lines from being turned on the lathe or at the very least, the lines should be very faint and hard to see. Pieces should be polished to a fine luster to bring out the grain and color of the wood while ebony should look almost like black glass.  Beautiful to touch.

A good chess set will be weighted and most chess sets are. The higher priced chess sets are usually weighted more than the less expensive sets.  The weights are important to give the chess piece stability on the chess board so that it won't easily tip over or get knocked over during the course of a game. It’s important the weights do not protrude beyond the base because this will cause the piece to lean and wobble on the board. A good quality baize or billiard cloth pad should cushion the bottom and also serves to cover the weight. Cheap felt paper is the sign of a cheap set. Some sets have leather pads; however, we believe that baize is far superior. Leather does not provide a good cushion and it can grab on a chess board instead of smoothly sliding.

Pieces need to be visually straight up and down while sitting on the chess board. They should not be tilted or leaning to one side or the other and they should not be warped (rarely seen).  The profile of the piece should be symmetrical and the height of the pieces should be the same (i.e., all rooks the same height) as should be the diameter of the base. The knights should look alike and the features should look the same from piece to piece. For example, the size of the eye should be the same on all 4 knights and located in the same place on the head. Some variation will be seen from knight to knight because they are individually carved by hand but the variation should be minimal and barely noticeable without careful studying.

Even though we tout all of our chess sets as being high quality (and they are), more time and attention is spent on the higher priced chess sets than on the simpler and less expensive ones. And, if you’re spending several hundred to over a thousand dollars on a chess set, you should expect that more attention and emphasis was given to the fine detail - you're paying for it!  Think of it like a sliding scale in terms of how much time is spent on a chess set. The less expensive it is, the less time that is spent on it. The more expensive it is, the more time that is spent on it. However, the fundamentals that make a good chess set remain largely the same.

The last thing we want to point out is that no chess set is perfect. We look at thousands of chess sets every year and we will find tiny imperfections on even the most perfect set. It’s just a matter of how big a magnifying glass you use.  Each chess set has its own unique character, from the wood chosen to the skill of the craftsman making the pieces.

Just to summarize, here are the 8 most important things that make a good chess set:

1.   Good quality hard wood

2.   Consistent color from piece to piece

3.   Good condition - no cracks, broke pieces, dents, scratches, or chips

4.   Pieces should be sanded smooth and polished to a fine luster

5.   Pieces should be weighted and the weights should not protrude beyond the base

6.   Baize pads

7.   Pieces should be visually straight, symmetrical, be the same height and have the same base diameter

8.   Knights should look the same

These are the basics of a good wood chess set. Get your chess set out and see how it stands up to this check list.