So, i canceled the order from ChessBazaar, and placed an order for Niggemann's set. Now just waiting a small hurricane to arrive in my living room, i guess?? Also, is Vijaya=Chess By India???
Niggemann's Alban set
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I guess that the chess gods are against me...today, when the package finally arrived to Finland...it hit a huge barrier called "Suomen Posti". Only after 5 hours, the tracking system said it is in Tallinn, Estonia....so at least the package has some cheap travel for 9 euros.......
Finally.
So there were cracks on some pieces, i sent these pics to Niggemann, lets see what they say...
As i already guessed, there are no replacements available, and they were very sorry about that. There are two options, 1) send the set back for full refund, or 2) 20% compensation off of the price (which would be some 30€).
Current situation is, that because of Queen's Gambit it's quite hard to find a decent set (with a decent price) that looks good for me, and that i actually want to play some chess, i decided to take the compensation of 30€ and keep the set.
Yea, the cracking is a sad thing, but seems like i bought this planets last rosewood/boxwood set with exactly this "Alban" design for the knights...the rest are ebony/boxwood, or different design..
So now this cracking phenomenon is not just occurring on ebony pieces, but on rosewood and boxwood pieces as well? Something ain't right.
Cracking on boxwood was a bit of surprise for me
Pawnerai wrote:
So now this cracking phenomenon is not just occurring on ebony pieces, but on rosewood and boxwood pieces as well? Something ain't right.
My guess is due to lockdown/TQG demand manufacturers are having to dig into their less than optimally cured wood stock long before they normally would
sound67 wrote:
The kiln doesn't that long to dry the wood, that's its purpose. It's just that no-one was prepared for the onslaught brought on by The Queen's Gambit. Niggemann even says so on the homepage. Honestly, I would have sent the set back rather than take the compensation. Cracked ieces upon arrival shouldn't be a thing. I myself have only had good experiences with Schach Niggemann from a dozen or so purchases, mostly boards.
From the YouTube vids I've seen Indian manufacturers don't use kilns. The weather is so hot/dry in India they just stack the wood blanks on the factory rooftops for 6 months.
High demand alone wouldn't explain all types of wood cracking. My theory is due to the TQG onslaught, needing to crank out pieces to meet demand, they're shorting the drying process, having to dig into their stock too soon. Improperly cured wood is the only explanation I can think of that might explain such cracking
Feb 7, 2021
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#13
Oh come on sound67, no need to be so unfriendly.
To be honest, Westsailor's hypothesis sounds completely reasonable to me. While so far, all you have hypothesized is "It's just that no-one was prepared for the onslaught brought on by The Queen's Gambit", without explaining how the lack of preparation would cause the pieces to crack. So why don't you enlighten us with your superior knowledge? (While being a bit more agreeable please...)
Sucellux wrote:
So, i canceled the order from ChessBazaar, and placed an order for Niggemann's set. Now just waiting a small hurricane to arrive in my living room, i guess?? Also, is Vijaya=Chess By India???
Vijaya Enterprises is the 'parent' company of ChessByIndia. It's a huge conglomerate that distributes animal feed products. Not sure of his specific connection with Vijaya (family ties?) but Nitish Seth is the 'owner' of ChessByIndia. He sells the Alban Staunton chess set on his chessbyindia dot com website as well as his Etsy page. I have found Nitish to be very accommodating and since they can't/won't do anything for you anyway it might be worthwhile to bypass Niggemann altogether and bring the cracking problem to his personal attention.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CHESSBYINDIA?ref=search_shop_redirect
nsound67 wrote:
Since it was Niggemann's last sample of this set, it probably spent some time in storage. The mistake they made is the same that House of Staunton and other retailers make by not checking the pieces again before they send them out.
And the guy from Guatemala doesn't know squad about Nigemann, they sell the vast majority of their products here in Germany, where they supply clubs and individual players.
Correct. I have no idea who Nigemann is but what does selling "the vast majority of products in Germany" and "Germany's most important chess retailer" have to do with pieces cracking? Nigemann is obviously (at least in this case) a reseller for ChessByIndia. Nigemann didn't manufacture the set.
Not sure why your panties are in such a wad defending Nigmann when I'm the one offering a theory absolving them on how/why the recent spate of cracked pieces could very well be originating from India in the 1st place.
Sorry to see that. Hope you get a satisfactory resolution
I'm curious why you think the possibility of chess piece factories in India having to dig into their naturally curing wood stock faster than normal due to unprecedented demand is 'nonsense'.
Three more rosewood pieces have cracks now. I guess it is because of this:
Chess pieces won't survive against this monster: "Winter"
Just winter in Finland. There's -20 degrees of Celsius outside. The air coming in to the building is not exactly too humid.
Very sorry to read about this ... just to let you know - I bough in 2018 from Chopra Chess Inc. a good looking 3.75 Zagreb cheap set (via wholesalechess.com) for 50 dollars - and 2 pieces had also cracks in it - and this was long before The queens gambit ... I know this does make it any better but you are not alone... greetings from Austria
I have long supported Niggeman as Germany's premier chess equipment seller, but several recent stories about pieces arriving cracked ("pre-cracked" so to speak) have made me reconsider. I too had cracks in one of their more expensive sets after just a little while, and they couldn't replace the pieces. I won't buy pieces from then again, only boards and accessories. The replacement policies of the original Indian companies are just SO much better!!!
Also, If I were Niggemann, I would give the makers a piece of my mind about their flawed products.
Sellers should always, ALWAYS inspect sets BEFORE they're being sent to customers. If I were that lazy in my line of business, I'd be OUT OF business.
So, because it seems like i 'm not getting my set from ChessBazaar anytime too soon, i've been looking for some other options and found this set from Niggemann.
https://www.niggemann.com/en/sets-boards/exclusive-chessmen/chessmen-alban-knight-19165.html
Seems like it could be the origins for the design of the Master Staunton set of the ChessBazaar
Alban set is the upper row, Master set the lower row in the image. Niggemann's set has rosewood for dark pieces vs. ebonized on the CB set. Just wondering if the Niggeman Alban set is worth of extra 70 or so euros.... at least there would be some hope of getting a set a bit faster...