That was me who wanted a Morphy set. I ended up getting the Reyakjavic (sp) Blood Rosewood/Ebony set and am VERY happy with my purchase. Dont really need another right now, but I would love to have have either Morphy ebony set or the Collector.
You are right though, there are some GREAT deals to be had.
+1
Now's a good time to buy a quality set.
The lesser quality sets are also a good deal. I got a Zagreb enonized as a gift for $50, and a 4 inch king royale set for $40 in the last four weeks.
Thanks for the heads-up that is great stuff, I am definitely buying a set this week. :)
+1
Received this set yesterday and it's awesome. I'll post a full review with photos in it's own thread when I have more time. But for those considering - or actively bidding - on a Morphy set, know it's a winner!
Nice. Im kinda thinking about how nice another set would be. Morphy ebony or Collectors ebony. Looking forward to seeing photos and reading your review of your new set.
Well, did anyone following this thread pick up one of the sets that ended last night? I was following three more that went for really good prices. The odd (and bad) thing was for the first time in a couple of months, as soon as the night's auctions ended, a new round of auctions did not go up! I hope HOS has not exhausted their supply. Maybe the guy who puts up the auctions was busy but I don't think so because while no new sets were posted, several of their cases were. We'll see what and when, if anything, goes up! In the meantime, I'm glad I got my two sets while I did! I hope you got yours too.
I hope HOS has not exhausted their supply.
Now that you mention it: I recently visited their regular store and 4(!) items I was interested in were out of stock. I hope we don't have to worry!
Darn. Just when I made up my mind to go ahead and purchase another set. I was on the HOS ebay site last night and was wondering what happened.
Hi. It seems that they are selling just chess boxes on ebay now. The chess sets were sold for a fraction of the cost, perhaps they will wait for the economy to get better.
Fortunately, I found your posts about ebay a couple of weeks ago and, with the help of a friend who lives in the US I got some great stuff: one 4.4" Prestige Collector Series, one 4" Collector Series in Blood Rosewood, one Prestige Zagreb, one 4.4" Fischer Series, three 3.25" Reyjkavic (2 Rosewood, 1 Ebony), 2 Professional sets in Rosewood, one Ebonized Zagreb and one 3.75" Reyjkavik in Golden Rosewood, and some chess boxes (4).
With the money I spent ($1345), in México I´d had bought just one 4" Collector Series in Ebony, one Professional (Lacquered, I havent seen the Rosewood version) and one 3.25" Reyjkavic (Ebonized). You won´t believe how expensive the chess stuff is here. The quality stuff I mean.
Now I have some gifts for my old man and my kids too. I just have to wait until my friend comes next summer, but he already checked the pieces and said everything was OK.
I won two sets and a box. Both 4" Collectors Ebony, the Marshall and the Zukertort sets. I can't believe they didn't relist more, I'dve been so upset had I missed out on both [esp since my gf is buying one of them as a gift for me]!
Lol - now we know why they are all out of chess sets - infomaticacobach29 bought them all!!!
Seriously though, they probably had a fixed number of sets that had been sitting around for some time and decided to sell those on ebay. I have a friend who owns a guitar store and when he has a guitar that has 'a birthday', meaning it's been sitting in the store for one year, he puts it up on ebay. This keeps this inventory moving so new guitars can be ordered. Perhaps HOS is doing something like this as well.
As far as items on the regular site being out of stock, that seems to be not uncommon for certain things. I have been trying to buy a deluxe HOS bag and folding Palisander board with notation for a few months now and both are still out of stock. I finally emailed them and was told one would be back in stock in late spring and the other not until sometime during the summer!
I would imagine part of this is the economy. Selling high-end anything in this economy is hard. Selling thousand-dollar chess sets I'm sure is tough which is why they had to resort to selling so many on ebay for a fraction of the cost. This cuts into their bottom line profits and so not as much money to keep popular selling items in stock.
Hopefully they are healthy and continue to provide great stuff. It will be interesting to see what if anything goes up on ebay in the near future. But like a couple people said, I'm glad I didn't sit on the fence and miss out on the great deals while they lasted!
Also, you can 'best offer' many of the fixed-price sets for 50% off even if there's no auction. 350 is more than 220, but still wayyyy less than $749!
Great news for those who were following this thread and thought they missed out on the great HOS ebay deals - they posted more auctions last night! So I guess last week was just a 'pause' in the fun. There are a few more sets up right now, posted last night, and I'm hoping more go up tonight. That was how they were doing it - posting a few on Saturday night, and then several more on Sunday night. Let the games continue and good luck to all. Make sure you post reviews and plenty of photos of the sets you acquire here on chess.com so we can all enjoy!
I know this has been thrown out there on more than one occasion, but I just wanted to let anyone out there interested in buying a high-end HOS wood chess set that there are some incredible deals happening on ebay in the last few weeks. Collector Ebony sets going for close to $200, and Morphy Ebony sets going for even less. The last two Morphy Ebony sets have gone for $156 and $161 and another one is on there right now. Someone here was pining for a Morphy Ebony set but I couldn't find their post!
So just a friendly heads up. I've been closely following auctions on the sets I like since I got my Imperial Collector a couple months back. I really like the Morphy sets next after the Collector/Imperial, and couldn't take how low they were going for. So, yes, I now have won a Morphy set. I'll post some photos when it arrives.