Drueke Players Choice as Every Day Set?

Well, I bought a new Drueke Players set back in 1990, shortly after I started playing Chess.  The set was nice, but the material just felt a bit brittle or fragile to me.  Also some of the weights in the pieces would come loose and rattle.

I gave that set to a fellow in my Chess club shortly after moving to Peoria, Illinois in 1996.  He really liked and appreciated it.  
Within a year and a half from then I started talking with Frank Camaratta and he ruined me with his high quality sets.  But that’s another story.

A number of years ago, six, I started buying plastic sets again.  The Legend Products sets are of excellent quality.  The Alegria I like the best.

If you like the Drueke design, Chessusa.com has a reproduction that is very nice and it is not expensive.  I own this set in both the Natural and red versions.

The Ultimate set from American Chess Equipment, newly released, is also a very nice set.

The House Of Staunton plastic sets have lowered in quality over the years.  However the Marshall Series in plastic is still excellent.

Puchasing a brand new Drueke Player's Choice at a chess club would've been an awesome experience. Not sure the same can be said for buying repros online. Legend Alegria looks original and I hope to obtain one in the near future. Their international shipping cost is outrageous, unfortunately, compared to other sellers.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject. You mentioned Drueke and Pacific Games Cavalier being the only plastic sets available in the old days. Then I wonder when did those Lardy style plastic sets started appearing at chess clubs? You see them everywhere now (photo below).

I do believe back in the mid 60's there was a similar set like what we know as today the Basic Club set. I would guess that these Lardy inspired Basic Club sets became more popular in the late 70's or early 80's I believe. Most defiantly the 80's for sure because I remember seeing them when I was a kid in that decade. I'm not 100% positive exactly when they became the norm for school chess clubs. Even though they are still widely used. There are other sets that have gained icon status. The Ultimate Chess Pieces most certainly have earned that title. 

They were making and selling that Lardy style plastic set back in the 60’s.  I remember buying one as a young student in 1970 along with a vinyl board that had no backing, for $5.00 complete.  The board warped terribly but I still have the plastic set.

Wish these would have been more popular. Better looking basic club set versus the Lardy design.

Club Special Chessmen - House of Staunton - Chess Pieces Review - YouTube

So the Lardy style plastic set was available from the 60's. Hmmm, it always puzzled me who had manufactured them when manufacturers of other popular plastic sets at the time, such as the Player's Choice and Cavalier, have all been well known. Even today, the ubiquitous basic club sets are sold under various names with no mention of the manufacturer's name.  

BTW, I just realized that, similar to wooden Drueke repro, HOS had done a wooden repro version of the club set called the "Club Series Chess Pieces". They're similar in style to Lardy but based on the plastic club pieces, which in turn was based on the Lardy. 

https://www.houseofstaunton.com/club-wooden-chess-pieces-3-75-king.html

Back when I was playing tournaments (1970s), the Players Choice was the most popular set among the club players.  They weren't expensive, just a little more than a standard plastic club set. My dad and I started at the same time - he bought a PC for himself and a nice wood set for me.  I always preferred playing on his PC set.  That design just made it easier to see the position.  It also was easier to grab the pieces, especially because of the thickness and indentation of the knights.  My dad has since passed and I still have his set.  When I started playing again a few months ago, I looked in the catalog and the first thing I wondered was, what happened to the Players Choice?

Now, one thing not mentioned here in this thread, is what most of the players back then did when they bought one.  Before Drueke came out with a heavier version, the thing to do was take off the bottom felt, weight it yourself, then put better quality felt on the bottom.  That way you could make the weight exactly as you want, depending on the material you use to weight it with.  A very common method was to stuff them with putty - that's what my dad did.  The problem with the putty method is that over time the putty would dry up and shrink, then the pieces would start sounding like salt shakers and you'd have to redo it.  The felt on my dad's pieces has lost its softness - it needs to be redone.

The most crazy memorable thing was that a few people wanted them REALLY heavy, and they stuff them with BBs.  Those were crazy heavy but fun to play with.  What made that crazy, though, was when someone would slam the pieces down in a speed chess game (or slam a captured piece down on the clock button), and the bottom would come off, and the BBs would rain down and roll all over the floor of the club.  Saw that happen at least once.

Back then, I think Drueke made a few other sets with the same knight shape.  I have a tiny magnetic set with the exact same knight shape - I think Drueke made it, the knights were the most distinctive feature of the PC set, and easily identifiable.

For seeing the position clearly, in my opinion no other set comes close.

@Knights_of_Doom, Fascinating story. It must have been a shocking experience to adjust to the new world where chess pieces come pre-weighted. Some of the luxury pieces nowadays even come with leather instead of felt bottoms. Wonder how useful a feature that is but they certainly look luxurious in photos. And I also agree with you that Player's Choice set help you see position clearly like no other. 

Found a trove of photos showing Drueke Player's Choice being used at a tournament in California back in 1976. Perhaps some of you have seen these photos before or even participated in one. They are photos taken by a gentleman named Alan Benson during Lone Pine International tournament held in March 7-13, 1976. http://www.chessdryad.com/photos/lonepine/LP76/index.htm

==@zagryan wow what a cool gallery. Love that pic of Najdorf + Petrosian right next to him, but especially love the pic of a 14 yr old Yasser Seirawan in overalls! lol

Wow, great trove of pictures.  A couple of them aren't player's choice, such as one of the ones with Petrosian.

Yasser Seirawan! No wonder he looked familiar.

http://www.chessdryad.com/photos/lonepine/LP76/pages/1976%20Lone%20Pine%20(10).htm

Saw Walter Browne, Diane Savereide, and a bunch of other great players from back then.  I never attended Lone Pine - it features prominently in the Canadian film "The Great Chess Movie", when Korchnoi attended.  Usually the tournaments had cheap tournament sets, that's pretty cool that they used PC sets for that event... a great touch of class.