St Louis Rapid and Blitz sets.

If anyone has a lazy $2500 burning a hole in their pocket, the 5 actual sets used in the tournament are on sale at HOS. 

https://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-2021-st-louis-rapid-and-blitz-official-chess-pieces-dgt.html

I've seen HoS is bringing out more versions with that knight, like "craftsman" and "cairns" series.

I just can't get off on pricey objects simply because someone used them at a high level....I realize it's just me and not judging anyone who ascribes to this.We each have our own taste.

Not paying big bucks for a Mickey Mantle baseball,or Tom Brady football,or anyone's autograph.

I have a friend who insinuated herself into Frankie Valle's dinner,which he was enjoying alone,just to get an autograph....I was with a pal in lower Manhattan one day and Richard Gere was having a heated argument with his girlfriend in front of a restaurant.My pal wanted to go over and ask for an autograph(insane)....My response was..."If you bother the guy,I won't drive you home.....You'll walk to Brooklyn".

I don't know...This business of escalating the price of something,just because someone famous,or relatively famous "touched it" does nothing for me.....in this particular chess pieces case, just give me a nice/new set.

Sorry for my rant-

I agree, the cooke luxury is the best one, in most part because of the flat straight base.

There is one thing that still keeps lingering in back of my mind, the knight with that mane is beautiful to look at but from practicality pov it is sticking out and fragile. Accidents happen and it won't be the first time I let a piece slipping out of my hand. If they redesign the mane it's certainly on my A whish list, now it's on the A- list, higher than my B+ list

@mister magic It has also other side, using Howard Staunton, the best chess player at that moment to promote the new designed pieces made it happen to be accepted by the mass and more. Now they're highly sought after. 

I understand....It's simply my own personal opinion and I'm never going to knock anyone who feels otherwise.

I will say that the overall set is really nice.....Thankfully, I'm pretty much done adding anymore pieces to my collection......Unless a set that Bobby Fisher used comes up.-

From marketing pov, it doesn't even need to be highly priced. For example, Air Jordan's are about the same price as any other brand in that upper segment, but the Jordan's sold way more than other brands. If it wasn't for Michael Jordan, he was (and still is) my idol when I was a kid, I would have probably been a Adidas guy lol

Me too! I'm also all set, unless something exceptional comes along lol

If I were you, I'd order with extra set of knights. If ten years from now you need another one, you'll be having that color difference

Yeah that's what I'm afraid off. I've heard somewhere the cost of making the knights is more or less half the cost of the whole set

Hmm, you can add me in the negotiating as group buy (more like mini group buy), maybe if they can cut some slack with the extra set of knights I will be interested as well

$2500 is a lot of money for a set of DGT game pieces. 

A few details about the set:

These are game-used sets. So to borrow the analogy of Jordan sneakers from above,,, these are not just Michael Jordan sneakers. But playoff game-used Michael Jordan sneakers with ironclad proof of authenticity. 

Signed Certificate of Authenticity that was hand-signed by all ten of the participants in the match - Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Peter Svidler, Liem Le, Richard Rapport, Sam Shankland, Leinier Dominguez, Jeffery Xiong and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Too bad there's no Magnus

And last but not least — All purchases benefit the Chess Club and Scholastic Chess Center of St. Louis. The wording is a bit "loose." If I was really curious, I'd give them a call for details.

Now if you don't want all the extras, there will most likely be regular sets not used in the games. No signed certificate. No box. No DGT. Etc... for MUCH cheaper. Choices are always good.

The 2019 Sinquefield set had a certificate hand-signed by: Magnus, Hikaru Nakamura, Caruana, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, MVL, Wesley So, Nepo, Aronian, Vishy Anand, and more. AN INSANE lineup. I'd love to have that set if anyone has one to sell.

I would get the Sinquefield Cup set from Chessbazaar. Yeah it isn't in ebony for black but Blood Rosewood is a much better wood for black. It is just a superior looking wood than ebony.

Re: The Sinquefield 2017 Knight piece.

For some reason photographers more often than not, shoot the Knight piece in profile. And only in profile. It's doing the set a disservice. The Knight mane is not as delicate as it appears in profile. Below is an image of the Knight straight-on. As you can see the mane is triangular. Wide at the base. More durable than it appears in delicate profile. In my opinion, the proportions and carving is beautiful.

Coincidentally enough, two days ago I set up an alert on CB to let me know when it's back in stock. Hopefully it's back in time for me to use the 40% off coupon. Fingers crossed!

As usual someone had to go off topic so let it be me this time. Coming back on Michael Jordan, did you guys know Adidas was Michael's first choice for shoe endorsement? The Adidas management rejected the prospect, they said Michael is too short so they were not interested in him. That decision went down as the biggest mistake in Adidas history and the then small unknown brand Nike went to take over the market leader in few years time.

This Knight design is from Frank Camaratta and it is my favorite.

The profile picture makes it look as if the mane is delicate, and it is not.  From the perspective of sitting at the board, those notches are not so apparent at all.  

Well, by this topic and what a few have said, I currently have the best of both worlds.  I have the HoS Creftsman set in Blood Rosewood and the Camaratta Luxury Cooke in Mopane.  Both are two of my favorite sets. 

And yes, I am done buying at this time.   

You guys all have the bug! it's never going away...Give into it,but only when the right set comes along....Me? I'm done-ish.

I didn't know there was a difference until thus thread. I know I'm waiting for HoS to put out the Cooke (not 100% sure) so I can get it in Bacote or Mopane.