Heck, I don’t want to be on any side either. In fact there really should be no sides like that.
Let’s look at the history of the Staunton design set that first started with Jaques. After all that is what this thread is all about:
1. In 1849 Jaques came out with this design and got Staunton to sign on with it.
2. With different artisans making the sets, the design specifics changed within the same company. And these design changes kept happening for well over 100 years.
3. Of course other companies made and sold sets of the same basic Staunton design. Some were more highly valued while others were cheaper in cost.
4. Back in the early 1990’s, a serious Chess set collector that also was a titled player and an international arbiter, and was an engineer with NASA, Frank Camaratta, decided he was not satisfied at all with the quality of Chess sets being made and sold at that time.
5. So, Frank traveled to India, where the vast majority of Chess sets were made, and contracted with a manufacturer to have consistently high quality sets made. I know this because told me this, himself back in 1999. And I remember a time he rejected some work and held the manufacturer to the legal, in India, contract to only be paid for the high quality agreed upon.
6. Frank sold HoS in 2004. And seemed to kind of leave the scene of set creating for a number of years.
7. And by the year 2000 or so, Frank started recreating sets other than Jaques originals. This is where we saw sets like the Liberty and Renegade come out with a number of others.
8. Of course other retailers started offering better quality sets to compete with Frank, but honestly there were not that many.
9. In November of 2014 I started coming to this forum where I learned a huge amount from the posters here. Most of them no longer post here because of the negative postings, like the ones from this Mohan fellow. He has not been the only bad one but he really is bad here.
10. These negative posters will very seldom, if ever post pictures of sets the way we all used to in those earlier years. rcmacmallin is one of the originals that left for quite awhile and has come back. But I just mention this to explain many things.
11. Anyway, Chess Bazaar was the only direct producer talked about here. Their prices were a lot cheaper then than they are now.
12. It was also about this time they came out with their 1849 set designed by Alan Dewey. Some of the collectors on here bought that set and gave honest reviews with pictures. There were some nice things about that reproduction, and some not nice things as well.
13. Carl with his Official Staunton Company started posting more. And he was the first, not only mind you but the first, To have sets designed and made on the input of posters here.
14. Carl also told of how he has been in this business for now well over 20 years. He also has worked with manufacturers from India to get nice sets made.
15. Then, some of the manufacturers that HoS and Carl used decided they could sell direct and literally undercut Carl and HoS on the exact same design sets the manufacturers were making for them. We see HoS and Carl both go away from those manufacturers and getting agreements with others, and not necessarily from India where you might expect. Note that I am not saying right or wrong, but just stating the facts.
16. We also have seen more of the direct sale reproduction manufacturers come to the front selling sets. They sell on eBay, Etsy, and/or their own sites. They are definitely competing in the marketplace. We now see a significant increase in offerings for Chess sets.
17. And these direct sale places are making their own reproduction design specifications. In my opinion, we now see the pictures they put on their sites as the only way we can evaluate them. We don’t have the goodknightmike, cgrau and a few other collectors buying all the sets to give us a real life review and comparison.
18. As I have said many times, I am a player that has a good number of sets. I am not a collector. If I were a collector I would be buying the same design sets from the different companies to collect and then be able to compare.
19. So, what we need are more people like Mohan and KnightsForkCafe to actually buy some of these sets they like and show pictures.
20. There are 2 set designs that I would like to see pictured here so we can compare. What I want is to see a set on a board pictured by the person that owns it. There is something about this that makes it so real. sound67 has done an excellent job of showing his sets and boards. In fact I bought a set from CB based on his review.
21. Back to the 2 set designs I would like shown are the RCM Craftsman set and the RCM FIDE World Championship reproduction. And I mean shown on the owner’s board and table.
22. I own the HoS Craftsman set that RCM has copied. Look at how they copied the Camaratta Knight. I also bought and own the Official FIDE World Championship set that I bought from Chess Baron.
23. I have pictures on this forum of my HoS Craftsman set. And still need to post pictures of my FIDE set. I also own the CB FIDE World Championship reproduction that I need to picture for comparison. I do like the FIDE official one better so far.
24. I am not a big fan of exact Jaques reproduction sets. I want my sets to look nice and more importantly play well. So I too like the competition in the market.
I'm not going to take any sides but it is nice to see healthy competition among chess vendors, be it one based in UK, India or even Canada. Competition makes vendors work harder and strive for more and we as chess buyers should welcome whenever vendors improve their offering, be it quality or price wise.
BTW, my first serious chess purchase was a Leningrad set from Official Staunton. I thought it was the official company that made and sold Staunton chess sets. Boy was I wrong! But I still love the set and take it to chess clubs every now and then. In fact, the knight shown in my profile picture is from Official Staunton Leningrad.