Travel Chess Sets

I’m just posting to lament about the seemingly horrible state of travel chess sets. 

When I learned chess, it seemed easy to get a travel chess set that would allow one to play on the bus with a friend, then pack away the game *without losing your position* on arrival, in order to resume the game later.

This seems to have gone away. I’ve seen only ONE popular contemporary set that supports this functionality — the often-out-of-stock Play Keeper. 

The others tend to be folding magnetic sets that cannot keep your position when packed away.

The other option, of course, is to simply buy a 1970’s travel chess set on EBay.

What am I missing? Is this really the sorry state of affairs? 

Lots of options:

https://www.houseofchess.com/chess-sets/style-4/board-inside.html

Thanks!

I actually bought one of these, and it was useless — the magnets were just too weak.

But I will try one of the pegged ones.

Agreed! The magnet quality has gone down, sadly - I owned two, gave away an old version and when I went to replace it realized that the magnets now are much weaker.

The pegged sets are workable, but the drilling pattern is… erratic.

We have 3 sizes of the checkbook version where we use flat discs for the pieces.  These allow you to keep the position and have very strong magnets.

Check them out on this page:  Travel Sets – American Chess Equipment (amchesseq.com)

they come in 5", 8", and 10" sizes.

thanks

Shelby Lohrman

American Chess Equipment

Thanks, Shelby!