genuine ebony???

@Mr-Endron,

I took the liberty of editing your photo to better highlight the contrasting woods in the knight.

Save this hi-res image to your desktop and enlarge it on your screen to really see the marked contrast between the knight's pedestal base, clearly ebony, versus the upper body. Note the surrounding pieces as well.

To my eyes, old though they may be, the head of this knight is not ebony.

I, too, am interested in this HOS set. It seems quite nice. However, if all the ebony sets are like this one -- not entirely ebony -- I'm less interested.

I'd be interested in learning how this happened, that the head of the knight is not ebony (assuming I'm correct).

I urge you to pursue this with the House of Staunton. I believe you are entitled to two new EBONY knights.

If you pursue a remedy to this, please share your experience. The outcome will help me to determine whether I place an order for this ebony set when it becomes available again. Others may also benefit from your experience with the HOS.

As an aside, this is an excellent photo illustrating the difference between ebony and ebonized pieces. For those just learning, note that the brown-colored ebony when seen with the naked eye under normal everyday lighting will appear black. Only when lighted with an unnaturally bright light such as a camera flash will the brown appear. This is normal with the ebony commonly employed today, which my reading indicates is Ceylon or East Indian ebony, which is naturally very dark brown. The ebony wood on your set appears just like my HOS Sultan ebony set when I shine a very bright light on the pieces. In normal lighting, they appear black.

Thanks, I hope this has been helpful, and in any case that's a nice set you have.

It's very possible you are correct, but I'm curious what the shipping price has to do with it.  It's either a mistake or intentional...I hate to believe the second since HoS has a very good reputation.  They should make it right.