The current Chavet sets are so unbelievably bad it's comical. Enjoy the photos.

The current Chavet sets are so unbelievably bad it's comical. Enjoy the photos.

Even after reading that the current supply of Jura wood that Chavet uses is of poor quality and knotty, I still wanted to order a set for the heck of it. I thought, how bad could it be? I ordered a current retail Chavet No.5, weighted and felted. 3000 miles to my doorstep straight from Jura, France.

The boxed pieces arrived packaged in a recycled Sephora box with no padding inside. Zero. Okay. Interesting. Let's begin! The first thing I notice upon opening the wood box is that the famous Jura wood,,, how shall I put it,,, has a lot of "character." Numerous knots, cracks, pits and dark swirly grain patterns galore on every piece. Not one piece was acceptable. Maybe a few of the black pieces were ok, but that's only because they're black and I can't see the wood. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. 

Of special note: 
About half of the pieces had loose weights that rattled. 14 of the 32 pieces to be exact. Not 2 or 3 pieces. FOURTEEN.
The white rook has a severe lean. Like the Tower of Pisa.
The white queen has a mild drunken lean. 
The black rook has a spot of missed stain right on the top. 
A white pawn has severe dark spots in the grain. I mean, they all had dark spots. But one in particular was particularly bad.

And the final (pardon my French) Coup De Grace of the set:
The black knight. The front angle cut is butchered. Like the carver started the cut and then just took a break to answer a phone call. And never completed it. Haha.

But here's the wacky thing. Even with all of these interesting "characteristics", mistakes and out-right botch jobs, I'm actually inclined to keep this brand new Chavet set. It's so unbelievably bad, it's GOOD. I smile, snicker and shake my head every time I look at it. It somehow amuses me. How far the famous Chavet Jura company of France has fallen. 

Just from looking at the quality of wood and craftsmanship. You can tell they've given up. It seems like they are using up the last remaining stock of wood from the previous discard pile to save money. The carvers are uninterested, and making careless mistakes. The legacy of Henri Chavet deserves better than this comical example. 

Note: the Chavet set is displayed on 2.25" squares. It's what I had on hand.

And now the photos. Enjoy:

Wow, you’re right.  This is so bad that it’s good.

Keep it. Rejects and defects tend to gain value over time rather than the usual sets. 

Wow, the packaging alone is jaw dropping. The workmanship is so bad its sad. However if I'm being honest I find the wood grain, swirls and knots quite interesting. If the actual wood working was good I would be looking into buying a set from them. 

MCH818 & KineticPawn, Yes. The wood grain on the white pawns and knights is rather attractive. The pawn heads look like swirly planets. The wood grain around the white knights' skirt is also nice as seen on the head-on shot. The prominent woodgrain definitely helps obscure the knots, cracks, and pits in the Jura wood hand-selected from the garbage kindling pile.

chessroboto, Yes. It does feel like I got a complete set of misfit rejects. Similar to the New York Mets. Go Mets! Haha.

Thanks. Yes, Drueke made some incredible bulletproof boards. I don't know what deal with the Devil they made, but it's amazing how this 15 year old solid wood board is still so flat and smooth it actually causes a suction effect with the table when I pick it up to put it away. Hah!

dang those pieces are bad. can/did you get a refund?

Sorry to hear this. I could live with some imperfections, after all it's man made. But when it's obviously crooked and especially that rattling this would annoy me to no end. 

Like theendgame3 said, that is such a gorgeous board! It amazes me even more hearing it's 15 years old! I have 35 years old wooden board. It's a cheap one, the brown squares are printed and they are almost gone now. If I throw it in the air it will come back to me like a boomerang. But it has sentimental values so I still keep it. 

For me the coup de grace would be the leaning queen. But mon Dieu this is bad. I'd be asking for a refund or at the very least a new queen and knight. Btw I love the knight of this set, sans that half cut of course.

There are little dents and small scuffs here and there. If a chess board is perfect, you're not having enough fun with it. Slam away! Haha. Zoom in on photos 2 and 3. On the border next to a5.

Ooh, ooh, I see it!

Aww.. THAT board does not match this set. Come man, I trade you a crappy board that looks more at home with this set for yours? hahaha....

#awesomedrueke

Lol I actually really like how these pieces look haha

After being so close to that set, the Drueke board should probably get a glossy coat of penicillin. 

Very unique set.  The leaning rook was LOL.

I dub thee the Woodsie Cabin set. 

Te boxwood in france, and sure in the rest of europe tneds to have this grain, very contrasted with respect to the color of the base , only the trees that live at great heights have a more clear grain. This kind of tree is an shrub with fine branches, you can see the center of the lines in the pictures. I can sure this because I use the boxwood from my house and the pieces have the same look. To avoid this a larger log is needed trying to avoid the center of the log.
The leaning of some pieces is due to have used a not dry enough wood. The black dots are usually seen in this wood, I think (I'm not sure) they are a kind of fungus.
You probably won't be interested in what I will now comment about but I need to explain it. The boxwood in Europe is going to disapear due to a caterpillar plague that came from Asia, this plague (cydalima perspectalis) has killed about the 95% of this tree from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and more countries, right now is beating Spain and France (about the 75% of the boxwood in my village is about to die and in 2 years it will have died) so I don't know what the future of the chess manufacturarers will be under this situation.

P.D: I love this set (the original one), specially the knights, completely simple and beautiful.

I guess the knots in the wood can be seen as charming. The slight lean in the white queen, I can overlook. The more severe lean in the white rook will be more difficult. The fourteen rattling weights will be a pain to fix with hot glue. doable. But that black knight. I might have to draw the line there. A Chavet set with a butchered Chavet knight is a tough pill to swallow. Hopefully I'll get a reply tomorrow and see what my options are.

I like the wood,craftsmanship not so much. This is more sad than funny really.

Ah yes...the more I look at it, plus the circled drawing help where to look at, this is not imperfection I was talking about earlier but this is just plain sloppy work.