Its a Peruvian Walnut and Maple Drueke Style Chessboard and has a cherry border.  Since I live less than an hour from Colorado Springs, I picked this board up in person instead of having it shipped.  I wanted to see Brad's operation even though he told me it was not very impressive. 

Well, I was shocked to see how right he was.  His garage is meticulous with hardly any sign that he even makes chess boards!  I saw two boards in the works, one of the raised boards which are beautiful, and another that was a simple checkerboard in the early stages.  He has a small work table and a table saw, and other than that, it looks like any other garage (but a lot less cluttered than mine!) 

This is truly a part time thing for Brad who is a high school wrestling coach and wood working teacher.  I was picturing stacks of wood inventory and dozens of boards in various stages of completion but it was nothing like that!  So you are truly getting something hand made from a skilled guy doing this on the side, as opposed to any kind of mass production operation.  

My board is beautiful and I'm very happy with it.  The customer service was excellent.  It took less than a week from the time I ordered to the time I picked it up.  Brad emailed a picture to me when the board was partially done, just to ask if I liked it so far.  And then to top it off, after I got home today, I had an email saying he refunded 15 bucks off my purchase price since he didn't need to ship it!

Needless to say, I highly recommend this guy if you are thinking about getting a new board.  (I never met him before today and have no association with him or his business - I know someone will question me on this).  

BTW, I bought this board with the intention of using it with some Jaques Reproduction pieces I will be getting for fathers day.  Since I don't have them yet, I used my Isle of Lewis pieces for my first pictures, and I think they look pretty good on this board as well!  

Its a solid wood board by the way.  No laminate!  The bottom of the board looks the same as the top except for the Drueke cut on the border.  You could literally flip it over and play on the bottom side of the board!  

I'll post more pictures when I get my new pieces.  

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ColoradoWoodWorker

A nice sunny morning for taking pictures:  Hold on they are posting upside down!  

The grain in all 4 corners lines up.  I put a coat of paste wax on it, and it is smooth like glass and a little shinier.

Shame you can' t add this missing man to the set !

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-48494885

Wow that is a brand new story!  Another piece found, that's crazy.  Weird how it is a different color than the museum pieces.  Maybe the museum pieces were cleaned up in some way.  

If you look on his website, he gives options from 12 inch board (1.5" squares), to 20" board (2.5" squares) in quarter inch increments.  Dimension doesn't include the border.  If you wanted something off the menu like 2.75 or 2.375, just send him a message.  He will make the board custom just for you, so I'm sure he doesn't care where he sets his saw when he starts working!  The same thing is true for the wood types, if you want something a little different from what is on the website, a certain board, but with a different color border or whatever, just tell him what you want.  

I see you decided on the grain running vertically. Noticed on Etsy he shows it running horizontally. I bought one of the first boards off of Brad and had the grain run horizontally.  Now I do not know which way for sure I want this one to run.  Again very nice board.  I will be ordering one maybe in about a month. 

Can't you just turn the board to change that?  

Edit:  I guess you can't and keep the dark square in the left corner LOL. 

I like it horizontal but now looking at our board I am starting to like the vertical grain.  

Your chess set you have coming which one is it?  And do you feel the 2 1/4" is the best for its size?

Mike,

It's hard to decide from small photographs. When I'm sitting in front of the board, with a field of vision that's a lot wider than it is tall, the horizontal grain just seems "right" to me. Although, YMMV.

VERTICAL

HORIZONTAL

I like the horizontal from the above pictures.

So do I, but maybe because it is just a prettier board in general?  More vibrant Color and more pronounced grain etc

I haven't thought about grain direction much but do some boards also have squares alternating vertical and horizontal instead of all the same direction?

I have seen them alternating yes.  That too is an option I guess. 

Yes, but I find mixing the grain patterns busy to the point of distraction.