Chess Bazaar World Championship Set vs. Official World Champ Set

@Eyechess I really want to agree with you - I really do. It's clearly a handsome set but imho the knight is a miss. From THIS angle he looks more like a Scotty dog or Ron Perlman than a horse. 

@Eyechess I agree with you about the handling. How a piece feels when one picks it up and when one sets it down does impact the experience. I also agree with you about the limitations of photos. Having the pieces in one's hand for inspection is significantly different than seeing the same pieces in photos.

However, as you know, the design is the most important aspect of a chess set for me. I believe @Zagryan said I was obsessed and he was most definitely right about that. I like the championship set but I really do not prefer the knight design. This is of course subjective and I am sure many here on this thread and elsewhere would disagree with me. Although I don't have the pieces in my hand and can only admire the pieces from photos, I can say with a certain degree of certainty that having the pieces in my hand will not change my opinion about the knight.

Look, this Knight is not my favorite.  However it does work.  Look at pictures of the last World Championship match.  
I just realized that this set is designed to work in faster time controls.  The classic Staunton Knights are too detailed.

Look at the Chavet Knights from the 1990’s.  These Knights resemble them more so.  
Yeah, my favorite Knights are what I call the Camaratta Knights with those little gaps or notches in the mane.

I'm sure it works but not visually as a horse. Here's a knight with less detail yet looks more like a horse. My guess is they had too many cooks in the kitchen. Too much back and forth. From my experience as an illustrator I know how that can damage an illustration.

The Camaratta certainly is a nice looking knight, I'd worry of chipping the notched version

Maybe this version of the Camaratta Knight would be a better choice for me

That article was probably written by a journalist patzer mixing up his notes. The guy he spoke to was probably referring to original Staunton knight design idea and it somehow got mixed into a reference to Danny Weil's knight design, which is clearly a simplified minimalistic sketch of a horse's head, not even trying to mimic a sculpture.

BTW, in context of the overall design of that particular set, I believe the design of the knight is well balanced and ingeniously rendered, not to mention (again) that it is carved from one piece of wood. I even prefer the original one before the change. Yes, it had a bit humped neck, but I can't help to admire it nevertheless. That vertical cut of the eyes casting that shadow and giving the knight a nasty stare is pure genius. It was never before done in a chess set.

Daniel Weil (of Pentagram) knows his business. Give this set a chance of a second look.

-Izmet Fekali

P. S. I've said it before: The knight in original Staunton Pattern chess set is a design flaw. Don't get me wrong, I admire the revolutionary aspect and the overall look of the Staunton, I love the variety of knights we witnessed through history, I cherish many ingenius and beautiful Staunton Pattern chess sets.

But from a purely design perspective, a flaw is a flaw. The king does never have a bust of a human head attached, nor does the queen or the bishop. They are all just sketches and symbols. So should be the knight.

P. P. S. Maybe "flaw" is too strong a word here. Let's say it's a design digression.

I get it. It works better for games. I can understand that.

This is a very good point that I did not realize before.

And it does begin with the 1849 Staunton.  The Knights since then have been a digression in design from the other pieces.

The German Knights, Liberty Series Knights, Chavet Knights, BCE Knights, latest World Championship Knights and a few others have been more in line, design-wise. 

With CB, you usually have to wait until they get around to version 3 before they get it. . . (maybe not right), but at least better! Check out their first couple of attempts at the Dubrovnik (the ones with the unicorns).

So true! Their current v3 of the Dubrovnik is much better over the v2 design.

Spot on! One of the best of the traditional knight designs, IMHO.

@MCH818 : Eyechess told us at the beginning of this thread that we usually get what we pay for.  In this case, Frank Camaratta's Selene Imperial set is worth the 6 times the cost of the Official World Chess set. You shall find the knights of the Camaratta's to be appealing.

Of course, I do not own either of these sets, so you must take my statement with a grain of salt.

@Zagryan Frank's version of the Selene knight is just awesome!!! It definitely has more value than the World Chess set. The carving is so beautiful. However, $1,900 USD is a lot of money. I have a list of sets that is a "one day" kind of set. This is one of them. However, I don't think I could ever pay that amount for a chess set. I would be afraid to use it. 

Gentlemen, the value of anything is based on what someone is willing to pay for it. Buy a piece of crap for $1000, and it becomes a $1000 piece of crap! Why would anyone pay $17.6 million dollars for a Paul Newman Rolex Dayton wristwatch when a $20 Timex performs the same function at a fraction of the cost? I don't know, I don't have $17M dollars to spend on anything let alone a wristwatch! But if somebody had a godzillion dollars, then $17M would seem like pennies to them. It's all relative (unfortunately, not a relative of mine!).

We all have a tendency to assess the value of things based on our own resources, which is fine when we're making the buying decisions for ourselves, but becomes less valid when we apply our sense of value to someone else. If I only have $100 to spend on a chess set, then a $200 chess set is an extravagance I can't afford.

If someone wants to spend $1900 on a chess set that sells for 6X more than a knock-off set from somewhere else, and it makes them happy, more power to them! Life is short guys, and the older I get the more apparent that's becoming. Let each of us enjoy our little pleasures along the way. We'll be gone a long time!

Yes, the value or worth of something is individual.

Chess sets can be tricky to value, especially for the individual.  As Lou points out the amount of money one has to spend on something matters.  Yes, there are some chess sets I could never buy without harming other parts of my financial scheme.

I am a relatively cheap person.  I certainly do not drive a luxury car and our home is modest.  The most money I have ever spent on a Chess set is $608.00 complete, Noj BCE Stage 2 with Staunless bases.  All others cost me less than that.  Five of my six Noj sets, including that BCE set, cost me over $500 and I paid over $500 for my HoS Morphy Series set.  My other Noj set cost me just over $400.  I paid over $300 for my two favorite HoS sets, Craftsman Series and Camaratta Cooke.  I paid over $200 for my OS Piatigorsky and Leuchars, and HoS Mechanics, Drueke 2, and Marshall Rosewood, and my Official World Championship set .  All my other sets cost me less than $200, with most of those being well under $150.  Understand, I am recalling my purchases starting back in 2002 to now.

I really am not motivated to buy the expensive sets out there.  For me, there is no value in the extra money spent.   And I certainly am not interested in spending all that money for these antique sets.  
I understand people buying these expensive things and that’s fine for them.  It is just not warranted to me.

We don’t see many collectors on this forum much these days.  There were some guys with collections of sets numbering in the hundreds.  They have invested quite a bit of cash.  But hey, that’s their preference.

As they say, "different strokes for different folks!"

Don't get into high end audio!

If I had all my money back,I could buy another condo.My wife reminds me regularly.

The real satisfaction is finding something worth much more than you paid.

LOL @magictwanger 

From where I'm sitting a $500 set IS an expensive set. But I wouldn't buy the Selene Imperial at a quarter the price because I'm just not that fond of it. 

Tell me about it! Thankfully, being a custom A/V installer I was able to get my demo equipment at a considerable discount (typically 15% off dealer cost). But it was still a substantial investment.