chess piece how to repair finish

I left a damn sponge on top of my pieces in a wooden box last night. One piece it looks like the finish came off. The pieces are boxwood. I am wondering if this is fixable, or should I just accept it as a casualty of war?

I assume the sponge was wet with water?  Why?  The finish is unlikely to be water soluble so it would be a water stain and possibly the finish lifting.  Check whether there is more finish lifting around the edge or whether the ring is just deposition of stuff dissolved in the water as it dries out.  The problem with trying to repair that is that you end up risking a different colour finish over a larger area.  Once you start pulling on that piece of string you really don't know how far you will have to go: lighter, darker, more or less glossy, only the patch, only touch one piece, refinish all the pawns, refinish all the white pieces... I'd suggest living with it.  

Or if all the white pawns have to be uniform, you can intentionally leave a sponge overnight on the same spot of the other white pawns - just recommending another direction when you "pull on that piece of string".

Beth , That not good , what did that pawn do to you ? could try some beeswax

What in the world was a sponge doing anywhere near your pieces, much less on top of them?  Sponges have a deep abiding hatred for chess pieces that dates back generations and are quite vindictive in their revenge.

Was it the pills again?

Sack it first with 1.g4 get off ma board

My recent set of House of Staunton pieces had a finish that was water soluble. Some of it came off in my hand by just holding the pieces, some I washed off under the tap and some I had to sand off. HoS were no help at all and I ended up fixing them myself by totally revarnishing them. It's quite time consuming but oddly rewarding! Some photos and details (the varnishing part is at the end of the page) here:

https://goneill.co.nz/chess-pieces.php

It might help if someone knew how these boxwood pieces are finished. What I would do is find this out then lightly sand the area and attempt to refinish as to that method used.

If the piece was finished on a polishing wheel then it is basically just a wax finish. This can be easily repaired by a thin coat of good paste wax after the piece is completely dry. Minwax or Black Bison are good. Provided you use a clear/colourless wax it should be a reasonable match. If it is a lacquer/shellac then it is more difficult. I think most modern Indian made pieces are just polished. The finish comes off all polished pieces after a while anyway.    

The spot looks dirty so I'd sand it lightly first before waxing - fine to super fine sand paper. 

Yeah, light sanding is a good idea. Don't know if that patch is dirt or just still wet?

Agreed. Let dry completely. 

I agree with all the above but note that for painters 180 grade sandpaper can be viewed as fine and >200 very fine. For chess pieces, where the scale is so much smaller, I found 400 grade was OK for sanding off old varnish/laquer/wax (whatever it was that was on my pieces) but really 600 or even 800 grade would have been better for the top, pre-varnish/waxing stage. 240 grade left small scratch marks visible when I tested it.

Good points. I think it all depends on whether you need to apply a stain/dye or not. If you sand something too smooth it may not take a stain. But given the wax is a final coat, I presume you need to sand as smooth as possible first (?) I wonder if sanding very smooth would inhibit shellac or lacquer?

I don't know about shellac or lacquer but for polyurethane I found one tip online, that seemed to work for me, was to tear off a bit of thick brown paper bag and rub down with that for the final coat. He said it was about the same as 1000 grade sandpaper, and smoothed off the top surface enough while roughing it very slightly to leave a good finish. It's very possible though that polyurethane is "stickier" than other finishes, especially the oil based one I was using as the oil would tend to soften the previous coat a bit I suppose.