Some new additions to my Romanian chess collection

Today or any day when a chess set arrives in the mail is a good day. My two original brown and wine red stained Romanian chess sets arrived today in great shape. Amazing craftsmanship and weighing just 36.7 oz. for the brown stained set and 36.1 oz for the wine red stained set. I was really impressed at the heft size of the pawns, a much welcomed attribute. Now I own all the sets that  CB and caissa romania produces. Some photos to compare the new and current lot of Romanian tournament sets side by side. Beautiful finishes on the new original sets and perfectly weighted for bullet, blitz or standard chess games. The last 3 photos show a comparison of the different pieces and their dimensions. Personally I like them both but I lean a bit much more towards the original design more streamlined and those pawns! A little feast for your eyes.

Superb set. I also own a Caissa one and a Chessbazzar one. 

I prefer the Caissa, because of the pawns and rooks and the slightly more elegant lines. But it is a great repro from chessbazaar. 

Beautiul sets jealous about the dedicated chess space. I have a slight preference to the set on the left side.  Wood grain and color more top my liking and the knight just a little cleaner, streamlined. The red set has a really nice pop to its color. 

Thank you ganz & Jackel. At first glance when I unboxed today I thought the dark set was ebonized black but when I took it by the natural sunlight it's a deep dark chocolate brown color almost black when looked at from a distance of just 6 feet away. Yes the wine red has a nice hue to it as well. The pawns and rooks are quite impressive of the original set with their heft and slimmer profile to the rook and knight which is more more detailed in the sides of the snout area, more streamlined. The table I use is a fold away table and it's not really a dedicated space for chess although perhaps in my next residence, if a spare room is available I will convert and designate that particular room to be my "chess/man cave" private room for family and friends to enjoy, sort of along the concept C.Grau has in his place. I'm no where near what he has as of a collection but slowly my personal stock is growing and who knows in a few years I may have an impressive area to display my bounty.

Beautiful sets , congratulations! Where can those "Caissa Romania" sets be bought??

Beautiful sets , congratulations! Where can those "Caissa Romania" sets be bought??

Thank you. You have to go to the website www.caissa.ro and look for the contact section. There you will find the email for IM Biro Sandor he's the owner & sells them. Ordering on the website doesn't work it's better to send him a personal email and request whatever set color you prefer he only sells 2 colors, a dark brown stained version and a red wine stained version. Good luck with you inquiry. He'll provide you with the details on how to send payment.

Very nice

Super nice!! Looks like you have the market covered in the Romanian arena.-

Thanks liml and magicT, yes indeed I'm tapped out on what is available for this cool set on both spectrums the original and reproductions. There may be another color from Romania but that's up to the owner if he wants to pursue that endeavor. Now it's time to work on my Soviet/Russian buildup I only own two of those but they're pretty good to start with a TAL from NOJ and 1951 Soviet/Latvian reproduction from chess bazaar. It's a process, time consuming yet satisfying.

The "exact" combo I'm saving for!!

Love the wine red set. Like the uniqueness of the pieces. Will have to add that to my chess set bucket list

Very nice collection, Jorge. Very nice indeed. 

Thank you kindly Rsava.

@QtoQlevel3 - So this is the Romanian set you were referring to in the other thread. What a collection! Which ones are the originals out of Romania? The darker ones? They all look beautiful and sturdy looking.

@QtoQlevel3 - Love the sets! Question: where are the sets on www.caissa.ro made? Who does the carving? I assume they are weighted and fit nicely on a 2.25" board? 

@zagryan & flantastico:

To answer your inquiries, first, These two sets facing the bottom rank of the alphanumeric characters on the board are the sets from IM Biro Sandor who does sell them on the www.caissa.ro website he supplies sets and local current tournament information that is occurring in his country or nearby locales. The first one is the red wine stained and the second the brown stained. They are quite nicely finished, properly sealed (no color rubbing off on players' fingers as was the case with one manufacturer-no names to be stated) and quite durable and fun to handle. Secondly, The board that all the sets sit on is a 2.25" folding rosewood and maple board from the HOS. The identity of the carver / craftsman isn't known better said I didn't ask Mr. Sandor for that tidbit of informaton. I don't know many of the names of the craftsman that had made the sets in my collection for that matter only a handful if that.  FYI.

Thanks for the info. Those pieces look tough, especially the rook. It's also neat that you purchased it from the country of origin.

@QtoQlevel3  

Man, I love the design of these Romanian/Hungarian sets!    Which of all the sets have the smallest base width?   Do you by any chance have 1.875" or 2" size board to see how they look on smaller squares?    Do they make any smaller versions of these pieces?

Smaller versions? Not that I'm aware of, but perhaps they could be found in Romania in some local chess shops I would imagine. If you go to this website www.caissa.ro and click the search within the orange strip under the title "chess set" highlighted in white print, you'll see the images of the red wine and brown stained sets on what I believe are 2" square vinyl boards. The original Tournament sets from Romania have the smaller base diameters. CB and RCM Romanian sets are a bit larger in diameter size overall. 

By the way, just to show some more eye candy on this particular set, I wasn't too enamored with the way the buff finished looked on both the crimson and ebonized models from CB so I jazzed them up a bit using clear lacquer spray from Minwax and put a "spit shine" to them. Below for your viewing pleasure. The first photo shows the matte/buff finish the set came as delivered. I took it upon myself to brighten them a bit. 

Thanks, yeah it looks like the caissa pieces have a slightly smaller base.   

I just love the shape of those pieces!  Were the pieces from Caissa a lot more expensive?