How good or bad is this Custom 1849 Staunton Pattern Set?

I can't get over the fact that the nostils of the horse are on top, like a dolphin... why chessbaazar keep doing that after the years??? that is not how Alan samples looked like. They really need to fix their wood carving.

The green color looks really nice I definitely like it.

Official Staunton have the best carving, in my opinion, though the "aged" finish is a big sad face for me.

May be due to some of the Original Staunton have the same look.

I really like the shade of green used for that set. 

https://www.amazon.com/Decoration-Elegant-Elephant-Figurine-Collectible/dp/B07WWXDX5G/

thanks, I think we make decent reproduction sets

@GM4-U
Could you explain about the Nostrils, sir. Who are better to explain than the actual retailer. Because the photo I posted above is of the Antiqued Official Staunton one. So, it seems the nostrils are on top in them too. 

@htdavid
What about these pictures? They too have the nostrils above it seems. I think you haven't noticed them well or could have missed them.

This is the link that documents the CHessBazzar design as well as Carl's design.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/reproduction-and-real-jaques-of-london-chess-set?page=4

I am linking you to the page 4 of the discussion, because I want you to check the post number 76 on that page.

That is Alan making excuses of why the differences in the design, specially the nostrils problem.

Because this is an old post many of the pictures that where linked from other websites are lost (google plus), the most important are the pictures that Alan provided showing what he sent to ChessBazaar, then the pictures of the prototype Vik sent back to Alan for approval, both of those sets have front nostrils, not top nostrils. the product that came out from production have top nostrils, I can only assume because that is just faster and easier to carve. But they do can make normal nostrils because that is what Vik sent to Alan and Alan approved.

If anything this particular repros are one of the most documented repros in the world, because the people involve in the process shared so much info about them.

As I said, there is also documented the Carl's repro.

ALso as you migth expect, this post of Alan did not sit well with the community... he literally suggest that Staunton himself was lazy on the quality and that can explain the incinsistences on the earlier horse head designs... That is defenitly no how we imagine Staunton to be, and nobody else up to that point think or love the Staunton for his lack of inconsistence and poor quality control:

"There seems to have been several slight differences of knight head design even in the first year of production. It is not known if these were deliberate changes or not, but it seems likely that it was a matter of difference in carving style and some slackness on the part of Jaques quality control."

Alan put his name and his reputation behind a poor design decision made by chessbazaar.

I am not a chess historian, I don't know if Staunton and Jakes where careless and sloppy on their sets, they sure have the opposite reputation, and people likes their sets for the good quality... that is why Carl's sets are so appreciated as well. Carl seems to have understood quality and deliver it, while chessbazaar seems to have drop the ball on quality and had Alan to then rewrite the history to claim that the original stauntons are of the same poor quality as the chessbazaar sets.

We now have either a tradition of good quality or a tradition of poor quality. People buying the sets like to believe the good quality is the real one. and they do expect it.

You can scroll down the pages of that debate if you wish.

The argument of Alan ends up arguing that you can pretty much present anything that resembles a Staunton and call it a 1849 repro with "some slackness"... and then there is the argument that even if the original Stauntons where bad quality, people today expects good quality... this is the reason why you see me going around saying that it can be said that Car's sets are of better quality than the original Staunton sets. There is the historical set, whatever standard of quality that is, and there is the modern repros that have to deliver the expected quality people wants, even if it is not historical quality.

Anyway, I have not seeing Alan's name on chessbazaar website for a long time... looks like they dropped his name form the list... probably after Alan decided that carvers in India will always produce lower quality sets and to make a real good set you need British carvers... That is correct, when Carl finally launched his set, Alan had the balls to trash Carl design claiming that it looked of poor quality because it looked like made by carvers from India... you figure. After such claims Alan's name as an expert got a big question mark in the eyes of a lot of people. You can scroll trough the pages, it is all there.

Alan's website chessspy.com is also gone. I imagine the hit he toke to his reputation, for trying to rewrite history to sell some chessbazaar sets was a bit to much... also I don't know...

It just seems like Alan ended up getting the short part of the stick on this one. And Vik keeps making top nostrils because that is cheaper, but at least does not say that Alan back up the design as historically correct.

Howard Staunton didn't make the sets, he sold his name to Jaques to put on a set designed by Nathaniel Cooke.  Our ideas of quality these days are different to those in the mid 19th century.  Jaques would have had carvers who made the knights heads for them (whether as employees or out-workers I don't know) and those carvers would have had particular styles.  The early Jaques sets were well carved, but not necessarily carved very consistently (they are different issues).  There is no quality issue, there is a consistency issue.  For the question of the nostrils,  Cooke's design has them more or less on top (look at the white knight in the pattern book, although oddly its not easy to find online, I looked in an old book).  

@greghunt

As I said, I am not a historian, so I don't know much about the original sets. I know people today is expecting certain level of quality and... consistency. The same problem happened with the Dubronik repros, where people ended up expecting the badly copy Fisher had instead of the actual 1950s design.

In regards to the nostrils on the top, I am yet to see a set from 1849 that have this handsome face:

Hahaha. good try. 

I hope you can find far more worse picture than that. Because you worked so hard to find a picture which normally won't show up when you search for 1849 in chessbazaar. So, you went through many images to find this and zoomed and cropped one. Wow!!! That good research.

I didn't zoomed and cropped, that is a screenshot shared by another member of this forums. The original source of the picture is of course ChessBaazar, they made the set, they took the picture and they posted it on their website.

Believe it or not what you see in that picture is the first badge of the ChessBaazar set. They where selling it with Alan's name attach to it... apparently some certificated of authenticity or something?, and the claim at the time was that this set was going to become a collectible, you keep the set, you keep the documentation and eventually you will be the proud owner of a piece of history... go figure...

Anyway, this is a marketing picture, funny you think it looks unflattering... you should see the pictures taken by unhappy costumers... LOL.

I remember back in the day people was hopeful that ChessBaazar fixed their design and then offer horse replacements to those first buyers... Looking at the horses you show, they still look off to me, but obviously much better than what they offer before, they should consider to sell the set of horses on their own, for people to upgrade their earlier sets?

PD.

I still like that green color, that is a winner.

I knew that that picture was a long time ago. Thats why I said you searched for the pictures. But what I don't understand is that whether you are talking about the set they offer now or they offered in the past. Yeah, I have heard that chessbazaar sets are awful quality and more than that their customer service is ever worse in the past. I have read many articles here about them. Most of the business done here are like that. Poor standard. But they improve over time. 

No, most of the businesses here have never had poor standards or quality at any time.

Chess Bazaar is unique in their history of poor standards and quality.

The House of Staunton has always had high standards.  Every once in a great while a piece has been damaged or flawed.  But that has always been an exception.  Also no company has the high number of sets that HoS sells.

Carl and his Official Staunton has also always had very high standards.  And the quality of his products has also been very high.

Of course, Noj has also had nothing but the best in standards and quality.

Well I am talking about their product... In my mind it kinds of factor in everything... new sets old sets, cheap sets, luxury sets... all goes into a big bucket in my mind.

ChessBazaar as you see around the forums have some reputation of kind of cheap prices at the cost of quality and service.

I personally don't care for "service" as much as other people do... anyway.

One thing that I wonder about ChessBazaar is their commitment to the brand... usually when companies expand the quality of the product going up or down, they accompany it with a new brand.

It would have being a lot more easier for Vik to launch a new brand for the luxury line and keep the Bazaar brand for the middle and low end...

Maybe it is an American thing?

It looks a bit bizarre to see a set that starts to look like a luxury set with branded King "ChessBazaar"... specially because the brand is not perceive as luxurious in any way... but... the owner must be prod of the name.

I work in Marketing, by the way... My recommendation would have being to develop a new brand, launch it and refer to it all the top quality sets, and keep the bazaar brand for affordable middle and lower end.

Even the word "bazaar" does not brings to the mind the idea of quality.

Maybe I should contact them with a proposal... LOL

But here we are, with the struggle to try to break into the luxury market using a brand that have for years being establish as the opposite.

I don't find racist anything he said.

Chessbazaar made low quality products. The other listed companies care more about the quality of their products.

We know Official Staunton and HOS outsource to India. And they are top quality product.

I am going to give you a warning here... some people think that they can make crap and bully people that points it out calling them racists, or sexists, or bigots, or whatever... basically they think that because they are from some minority they are entitle to not be hold to any form of quality standard... historically speaking companies that go this route end up filing for bankruptcy and that is why the common wisdom says: "Get woke, go broke".

Having low quality product is a thing, going nasty to people is a different thing.

There is a huge cultural gap. Thats the reason. People are just beginning to believe in those marketing makeups recently. It will take time for them to fell in the pit. After few years, India will become a Market like America. people will lose their beautiful life and start to be come more materialistic like the west. And then they will be running after materials. Just for boasting. Sad times.

Well this Sound67 is being a bully and is completely wrong in calling what I wrote there racist.

It is well known that The House of Staunton and Official Staunton have all their sets made in India.  And yes, Chess Bazaar also has their sets made in India.  The fact that these things are made in India has NOTHING to do with the conversation.

I own well over 35 wood sets.  All but 6 of them are made in India.  I like and play Chess with all the sets I own.  I have bought and owned many more sets than the 37 or so that I currently have.  I sold those because I did not like them for one reason or the other.  The fact remains that I like, use and enjoy many sets made in India.

I also have a good number of colleagues and friends that are from India.  One particular gentleman is a Retina Specialist/Ophthalmologist.  He moved to the United States from India to complete his residency and a couple of fellowships.  And in the Chess clubs I am in and run, I have had and currently have a high number of people, of different ages that are from India.  No one that knows me would ever countenance a claim that I am racist at all.

Now, this Sound67 guy is bad.  He has said very little that is positive in his posts since he started posting on this forum.  Of course when I prove him wrong in his radical and negative statements, he quits posting in that topic.  

Yeah, this guy needs to take a long break, hiatus, sabbatical, leave of absence, vacation, whatever from this forum for the benefit of all of us.

@Eyechess cool. Peace.
"I also have a good number of colleagues and friends that are from India.  One particular gentleman is a Retina Specialist/Ophthalmologist.  He moved to the United States from India to complete his residency and a couple of fellowships."

Money Eaters.

Actually, you are pathetic.