My New HoS Dubrovnik Chess Set

Hello all,

I recently purchased the Dubrovnik chess set from the House of Staunton. My whole life I've owned plastic "tournament style" chess sets. Although I think these are great sets it's always been my dream to own a beautiful wooden chess set. So, now that I'm a grown adult I splurged and treated myself to a wonderful new wooden chess set.

First, I have to say that I've never handled/seen, or played with, a high quality wooden chess set. Needless to say I was absolutely floored by the quality of this set. The feel of the wood, the look of the pieces, and the overall quality of everything is stunning. I couldn't be more pleased. 

I took a bunch of pictures as I was unboxing everything. Like I said it's a HoS Dubrovnik series chess set. It's in boxwood and golden rosewood. I also purchased the superior walnut and maple chess board along with the mahogany slide top box. I used the "freedom20" coupon code to get an additional 20% off. The overall total was a little less than $380 with shipping included. I thought that with the discount going on right now that now was as good a time as any to finally pull the trigger on this.

Here's how everything was packaged in the box that was shipped to me.

The mahogany slide top box was wrapped in soft packaging material and sandwiched between a couple pieces of styrofoam 

A very beautiful box for the pieces. 

The board was also wrapped in the soft packaging material. It was also sandwiched in some styrofoam within the box. 

Although I think this is a very beautiful chess board. I don't understand why the insist on putting their logo on the h1 square. It's kind of tacky looking. Let the chess board be a chess board and not an opportunity to advertise yourself. Oh well, it's still very nice and I'm very pleased. At least it's a nice looking logo (even if it is offcenter within the square).

All the pieces fit into two cardboard cartons in the one box. Placed on top of the pieces was a thin layer of styrofoam padding.

After removing the thin styrofoam layers the pieces are revealed. One concern I had was that I have read (and seend videos/pictures) that HoS packages their pieces in green styrofoam which inadvertantly stains the boxwood pieces green if left in the packaging too long. Well, I am pleased to say that HoS fixed this problem by packaging the pieces in a white styrofoam material and individually wrapped all of the pieces in small zip lock bags. Obviously great care and a large amount of thought went into the packaging process. I couldn't be more happy about this. 

The beautiful Dubrovnik style knight still wrapped in the zip lock bag. With very close inspection you can notice very slight imperfections/scoring in the crevices of the knight. Kinds of adds a bit of uniqueness to the pieces I think. 

Everything unboxed and set-up. Absolutely stunning. What a beautiful piece of art and an absolute joy to handle and look at. I can't believe it's mine! lol

The King's finials are removable and you can interchange them so you have opposing color finials. I wil not be doing this since the original Dubrovnik set did not feature opposing color finials, but it is possible to do with this set. Also, I would imagine that the finials from the HoS Zagreb '59 chess set would be interchangeable with these finials as well, so you can get some serious HoS mixy matchy stuff going on with your chess sets.

A little closey uppy action of the golden rosewood pieces.

Boxwood pieces. 

Up close and personal!!!

I absolutely love these knights. They're so robust and chunky. These things will probably withstand quite a beating.

All the pieces fit easily into the storage box. Hardly any shuffling around required to get the lid to close. At the bottom of the box is a very cushy piece of green material for extra padding. The padding is removable if you want to take it out for some reason or another. 

All closed up and ready to get put away. 

There's no chess club where I live and I don't have friends that play chess. So, unfortunately, this chess set won't get nearly as much use as it deserves. I'm working on starting a chess club in my area so maybe it might end up getting used quite a bit. Also, I have a 2 year old son that I am hoping will enjoy playing some chess with his old man when he gets older. No pressure on him, just something I'm hoping for. 

Thanks for reading. If you're on the fence about this set it's absolutely beautiful and you can't go wrong. I did have slight buyers remorse about spending so much money on a game, but it all faded away once I had everything in hand. For me, this was a lifetime dream and a lifetime investment in a beautiful piece of art and the greatest game in the world. 

Thanks again.

Great choice. I own the ebonized version of this set. If the sheesham was available when I got mine, I would have chosen it instead.

Hey cavelltodd, congrats on the new set. Have fun!

Congrats on the great acquisition, Todd, and thanks for the terrific review. A friend and I both own this set and thoroughly enjoy playing with it. You will too!

Great review. I also recently bought my first proper chess men and I too was astounded by how much I liked them. Hope my 2 yr old will discover chess too!

Nice nice nice I'm envious! These sets ppl share are like chess porn lol. Absolutely lush set in all aspects but agree about the logo on h1, it spoils something of the symmetrical purity of the board and there's no need as these guys produce top quality stuff that speaks for itself. They could at least emboss it round the edge if they insist. Still cool as **** I wouldn't be slamming the queen down when giving check if I was playing with this!

Yes, congratulations on getting and having such a nice combo.

I own the same board and I use my Golden Rosewood and Walnut sets on it. I also wish there would have b en an option to not have the logo on the h1 square. But at least it is not so noticeable during a game.

May the 2 year olds mentioned above battle for the world championship in the not too distant future 

Great set!

Dubrovnik pieces are my favorite.

 i also find the HoS logo in the corner to be utterly tacky and distasteful.  I don't know if you are aware of this, but HoS sells the same board without the logo.  Maybe you could exchange?

I would personally never own a board with blatant advertising like that...

Hey Bawker, I cannot find where HoS sells this board without the logo.

I also do not care for it, but not to the point of never owning one with it. When a piece, usually a rook, is sitting there on the square the logo really is not that noticeable. And as the game continues I have never experienced it being a problem in play for either me or my opponent. In fact I forget about it in the intensity of the game.

However I really prefer to not have the logo on it like that, especially for a nice wood board.

When I bought that board HoS told me it only came with the logo. If you would point out where it is without the logo I will be happy to call them and seek an exchange.

Great looking set.  The board's nice, too.

Eyechess,

HoS sells the logo-free boards on amazon.com.  I'm not sure you can get them ordering direct...

Alow me to offer a helpful hint. Here's how I store my 4" Monarch set in the same HoS coffer case.

I lay out the major pieces first.

Add in some pawns as spacers and lay in the rooks and remaining pawns.

I cut out a topper from some convoluted foam I had laying about.

Which fits conveniently in each compartment. And it closes up with narry a rattle, all safe and sound(less).

Bawker, I bet you are looking at a different board than this one. Whenever I have a choice I always go without the logo whether a Chess board, bag or whatever.

I ordered this board on the phone and called them twice before ordering. Both times they said it only came with the logo, this specific board that retails for $199. Of course I hardly ever buy anything at full retail so I paid quite a bit less. However this board only comes with logo, darn it.

They do have boards they sell with the option of logo or not. I bet it is one of those you saw on Amazon. I looked on Amazon now for about 15 minutes and could not find this board without logo.

Very nice! I might have to do somehting like that. Honestly though, I'm not worried about the pieces getting a few dings or scuffs on them. That's one of the reasons I really like the Dubrovnik sets. The pieces are very stout and strong. They'd fit in well at the park playing some blitz or at the club playing in serious games.

Beautiful board, set, and box!  Congratulations.  Despise the logo.  My personal choice would be a different board, even from a different company rather than have the logo.

@cavelltodd: That's about the best looking set I have seen for that price point. Very nice. Keep your kid away from it until he his 12 and a GM. If money were no object, would you still get the exact same pieces and board? If not then what else?

I quite like the logo, wouldnt bother me at all! Just shows its from a good manufacturer. Same with the little red crowns on the old Jaques sets... at first I thought they were a bit tacky, but now I hardly notice them.

Chicken_Monster wrote:

@cavelltodd: That's about the best looking set I have seen for that price point. Very nice. Keep your kid away from it until he his 12 and a GM. If money were no object, would you still get the exact same pieces and board? If not then what else?

If money were no issue I would've searched high and low for an original Dubrovnik set! Lol but seriously I would probably have gotten the Noj Dubrovnik set. I think those are the best reproductions money can buy.

Ha. Yeah, the Noj Dubrovnik II are very nice and a bit more expensive. The boards they sell are realitvely low cost though (from what I saw).