four ebony sets

I recently bought an OS 1870 set, and as I own some other ebony sets I took them out of their boxes with the intention to compare the quality of the wood. While I was at it I took some pictures with my iPad, meaning to post them in the forum. Now, I am not a good photographer, taking pictures of ebony pieces is quite difficult, and I am not satisfied with the ones I took, but I thought that as I try to figure out how to improve the quality I could share some considerations on the four sets.

These are the four sets I am comparing:

- the Dunoon set from the regency chess company I already reviewed some times ago

- a set from CB, which is very similar to the HoS imperial collector

- a Lasker set I bought from designerchess, manufactured by AIW

- the 1870 set by the OS

Here are pictures of the black army of the  sets listed. In order to examine the quality of the ebony I tried to take some pictures under bright artificial light, they look quite eerie. We’ll come back to the ebony later, first I take the opportunity for admiring the design of these sets.

Dunoon:

What I like in this set is clean design of all the pieces, which stands out especially for the peculiar and quite elegant shape of their bases. A nice, heavy and very stable set.

CB:

I was attracted to this set by the knight, which manages to be different from common Staunton patterns, but at the same time not too odd looking and actually pretty sober. The rest of the pieces aren’t as peculiar as the knight, but neither are shoddily made, the massive rooks are another reason to buy the set, for me at least.

Lasker:

This set sports a gigantic, imposing king, and besides that it has an essential design in all the pieces (look at the knight, it is sort of a simplified version of older Staunton knights). My guess is that this makes things simple for the carvers, but at the same time in my opinion it makes for very good playability.

1870:

No need to comment on this set, as other posts in this forum have already pointed out its high quality. A very good repro of an early Staunton design.

Next, as I am at it, I am going to compare the pieces of the four sets, under bright light again and in full sunlight. From left to right the order is always: Dunoon, CB, LAsker, 1870.

Here are the kings:

Difficult to say which is my favourite, all four kings have a distinctive design: check the elegant shape of the base in the Dunoon, or the sturdiness of the Lasker. Should I choose just one I would probably go for the Lasker, but that would be a close call.

Now the queens:

Here my favourite is the Dunoon, because of the nicely shaped crown with 11 sharp and at the same time sturdy spikes; the queen of the CB set is in my opinion quite awkward looking.

The bishops:

The Lasker bishop stands out for the typical shape of the mitre and the relatively shorter “body”, all of them are anyway very smart looking, I think. In the sun the brown stripes in the 1870 set are quite evident. My favourite is the Lasker, but then again the 1870 has such a nicely cut mitre…

Now the knights:

In this case I am not going to pick a favourite, each design is excellent in its own way in my opinion. In the pic under sunlight looking carefully you will be able to appreciate the striping of the ebony in the CB set and in the 1870, this is about as much as you can see when you handle the pieces during a match.

The rooks:

All of them are heavy and well represent the role of the piece during play. The profiles of the Dunoon and the 1870 are my favourite, with their high cut of the base and the thin crenellation; from above the Lasker set distinguishes itself for the smaller inner ring and the sloping crenels.

The pawns conclude this part of the review:

The Dunoon and the 1870 have a more sophisticated look, CB’s is the only one with a slping collar and its ball in not perfectly round.

For the last four images I put some pieces very close to the light to compare the quality ebony.

As you can see ( I hope), in CB and 1870 the striping are evident, especially in the 1870, whereas the other two set have a consistent deep black colour. It is harder to say which one is better, I like the striping, which shows that the set is made out of wood, on the other hand black ebony when well polished is very actractive and elegant. In three out of four sets though (CB’s being the exception) there are spots of slightly different colour, which make me think that they were dyed, at this detracts to the beauty  of the wood.

At this point I am still left with some doubts about the processing of ebony. I know that there has already been a long series of comments on this forum on this issue, but it is still unclear to me what happens to the ebony: is it processed chemically or just dyed? Does deep black ebony exist in nature?

I have say this before: Nature doesn't produce wood on Jet Black.

As for how it is dye... I guess everyone will do diferent.

Nice sets.

ok ht, but then is striped ebony the natural aspect of the wood?

I'd say it is.

However there is grades of ebony, considering how thick the stripes are.

This table shows what I mean:

Then there is the grade B... As many things in life this kind of clasifications are mostly subjective to the eye of the expert who is examining the wood.

Depending on the actual kind of tree the stripes can be brown or gray. The gray ones are expected to darken when age, they never will get black though.

Here some info about Ebony:

http://www.core77.com/posts/25523/an-introduction-to-wood-species-part-9-ebony-25523

that makes good sense, thanks. So I guess that black ebony is either dyed or obtained by selecting bit of the wood in between stripes.

Awesome review, A, and great pics. Well done!

Thanks cg, not quite as good as the pictures of your great sets though :)

You're too kind. I especially like your shots that really capture the character of the striped ebony. It's really hard to take good photos of black pieces, at least it is to me, but you have some great ones.

I like the natural 1870 striped ebony set the best, no need to doctor it up with black stain, it's a winner. The comparison is great, thanks for the thread.

Be careful with purchasing genuine ebony, as it might be in violation of local laws. The buying and selling of such a wood is often the ethical equivalent of the trade of Africa's blood diamonds.

thanks Mike. I loved the striped ebony already in my CB set, even more so in the 1870, which is a great set at such a good price I would buy another one just to have spare parts, was I not risking a divorce :)

Anyway we got to stop saying that striped ebony is so good, otherwise OS may rise prices on the 1870 ;)

Agamemnon you rise a good question, I am pretty sure the chess retailer I bought the sets from are respectful of local laws, but next time I buy an ebony set I will ask beforehand.

Hi rc, in my opinion the Dunoon and the 1870 have the highest level of finish, in my CB finishing is uneven, some pieces are well done thoroughly others not as good. I'll take some pics of the white sides to show this when I get some time.

All the sets look good to me. Thanks for the pics.!