Hi everyone,
I'm happy to show you my collection of sets, I'll be adding some comments on each of them. I made photos of each set on both of my boards, both of 50mm. And I'm not a photographer, so excuse me if some photos will not be top quality ahahah.
German Knight set:
From: local store
Woods: Natural Boxwood/Golden rosewood
King height: 8.9 cm (3.15")
King diameter: 3 cm
White King weight: 34.9g
Black King weight: 34.3g
This was my first wooden chess set that I bought by myself to play with my father and for analysis. I still enjoy it as the first day. Simple looking, but extremely practical, for blitz matches is by far my favourite. Every piece is weighted nicely and they are extremely satisfying to play with. Simplicity is key, and this set is the definition of that. This is also the smallest set that I use with my 50mm square boards, the others will be larger.
Wegiel Ambassador chess set:
From: Amazon (don't exactly know where, it was a gift)
Woods: Hornbeam/Sycamore
King height: 11 cm (4.5")
King diameter: 3.7 cm
White King weight: 32.2g
Black King weight: 36.1g
A very popular set online, this was a gift from my sister for my birthday, and I simply find the design stunning. Love the decorations on each piece, and my favourite one of this set, the rook, has to be one of the most satisfying piece that I played with, with its carvings. The King and the Queen also have unique designs, rare to be seen somewhere else. I heard both incredibly positives or negatives opinions on this set, I personally am on the incredibly positive side. One downsight is that they are not weighted, but we can't have hall. The set comes with its own board that serves also as the box, so It seemed correct to post the photos of the Ambassador only on its own board.
The New Minsk Series Chess Pieces:
From: House of Staunton
Woods: Natural Boxwood/Anjan
King height: 9.53cm (3.75")
King diameter: 3.81cm
White King weight: 54.4g
Black King weight: 58.2g
Anotther gift for my birthday, this time from my parents. Probably my most elegant looking set, love the slim shape of the pieces. I always loved Eastern European sets, and the Minsk Series represents well my love for them. Really like the non-religious finial of the King, probably my favourite piece of the set. The bishop without a cut is also very nice, only piece that maybe it's a little out of place with the whole mood of the set is the knight. I love it on its own, but in this set, even the pawns are very slim, the knight maybe is a little bit too rounded. The grain of the Anjan wood is very pretty. Overall, it is a very pleasant set to look at and play with.
Piezas Staunton 6 Mora-Play
From: Escac i Mat
Woods: Boxwood (honey and red stained)
King height: 9.8 cm (3.85")
King diameter: 3.6cm
White King weight: 36.6g
Black King weight: 35.4g
Recommend to play the Ruy Lopez with this. Just joking. I found this spanish set on this forum where sound67 opened a topic about it. I fell in love with the red color of the black pieces, and the sharp-edged knights. Very thick looking set, the pawns are huge (I forgot to make a photo of the pawn, my bad). It arrived with a nice wooden box that contains all the pieces easily. For its price, I think that it's a great set. The red color is simply stunning, even more with the right exposure in light. Unfortunately, the set came with two defective pawns as you can see in the topic mentioned above. I'm still waiting for them to arrive, I wrote to the them, they responded that they will sent two new pawns if I specified the color (I forgot in my original message), I responded with the color and no more communication since then. I'll probably just write another message to see what's happening.
(sorry black pawn)
Burnt Zagreb 59' chess set:
From: Chess by India
Woods: Burnt Boxwood
King height: 9.5 cm (3.75")
King diameter: 4.2 cm
White King weight: 65.3g
Black King weight: 65.3g
My most expensive set. I saw some topics on this forum about the best manufacturers and Chess by India popped up as a relatively unknown but excellent manufacturer. I decided to look at his store and saw this offer (at the time the price was 231 euros) pieces+board for an excellent price (the same pieces on HoS are more expensive alone than the combo pieces+board here). I pulled the trigger, and after a month of it being blocked at the local customs, it finally arrived. The board is the black, ebony one that you have already seen on the photos above. Mr.Nitish was also extremely kind and present during the communications between us. The pieces are gorgeous, extremely well hand-crafted and the Burnt aestetique is stunning. I love the Zagreb design, this + the Burnt decorations was a must-buy for me. As I already said, the pieces came with the 50 mm square board, and I was worried that, knowing that the Zagreb design has larger bases than all the other sets that I own, it will look cramped, but Mr.Nitish reassured me that the board was perfect for the pieces. Now I can say that they look right, I have absolutely no problem to play with them (even if it's more a showing set more than a playable one). As I said for the Minsk set, loving the Eastern European style, this one is really a satisfaction to have.
I also wanted to show you two more particular sets that I own, one is an hand-made Russian chess set that my father bought when he was in Moscow in the early 90's . The wood I think is birch wood. The hand-carved details are simply stunning, every piece is different. They are not weighted and when my father bought them they were also unfelted, we added them just recently. The board is a theme-board representing a castle, that also serves as the box for the set. Only negative note is that it can't unfold completely in a flat surface, so it looks like that you are playing a chess game kind on a uphill battlefield lol. Apart for that, I think that it's a really particular and good-looking set.
The other, and last one, that I wanted to show is a travel magnetic set that was a gift by my grandfather for my father. It's a closable wooden box that has a magnetic board and pieces inside. It's really gorgeous and it has really some style I think.
Sorry if I annoyed you with a very long post, but these are my chess sets, hope you'll enjoy them.
The board was wrapped tightly in bubble wrap and protected the board during shipping. Mike was in the middle of editing the video when I received the board. It was around 10 days after receiving the board until the video was posted. I know how you feel when you said you almost was late to a meeting. I got lost down that rabbit hole when I first came across his chess board builds on his channel. I watched all his chess related videos in that one sitting.