When non-chess players sell chess equipment -FAIL-

This is why it is worth it to spend some time on e-bay.

Just got this set:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-COMPLETE-SET-BROOKSTONE-ROSEWOOD-CHESS-PIECES-/141749276382

Picture don't show much but for what I can see it is a possible 60s or 70s Liberty set. will have to wait for it to arrive.

"Pieces not included."

"dug civil war CARVED CHESS PIECE OR PENIS ? BULLET FROM THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM"

Sorry for posting so much... but this one have to be share. This vendor manage to have the board doubled backwards:

It's really stupid sometimes... you ever seen a box (with a set inside) or an icon or background for a Chess app or whatever and the picture of pieces set up that is visible is completely irrational, if not impossible?

I saw an e-bay advert showing an Infant of Prague* statuette, claiming it was likely a chess piece.

(*That's a venerated Catholic icon of the baby Jesus dressed in crown and regal robes.)

What piece would that have been I wonder.

My favourite.

Although my main point from this thread is: there are some REALLY ugly chess sets out there. I hate playing on sets where you have to try and tell which piece is which, or even what colour a piece is suppose to be.

Not all sets are playing sets. In general players prefer very simple sets and collectors go for all kinds. Lots of collectors buy on eBay. Lots of auctions are bad, wrong, and misleading for both markets, but anyway those sets you're complaining about having trouble playing with are mostly decorative and not meant for play.

also as far as the comment about Staunton being applied to non-staunton sets earlier I had a talk with at least one eBay seller about this back when I did a lot of collecting. He said he knew what Staunton meant and that the sets were not Staunton but he thought people who buy chess sets would search for that word and he wanted his listings to get exposure.

meh. It's been done:

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/blog/notes-on-yoko-onos-white-chess-set

I agree. I meant it as a joke.

Ah, an off-color joke. cool I never get them, I'm color blind (well, red green that is) lol

Yoko Ono's board has only white squares, no dark squares.

Here a failure to ID the set turns ou for the worse.

For people on this forum who doesn't know, there is a set name the Duncan. This is a very common ceramic set to find. I am not sure about this but I think they used to sell the ceramics unpainted and so the buyer is sopouse to paint them.

This Duncan sets usually come with the "hand painted" on the description, and sometimes they are found unpainted for some $20 to $30 the whole set.

It is fairly common to find this Duncan set with all sort of funny descriptions as the sellers usually fail to ID it.

This vendor have totally failed to ID the Duncan pieces an believe they are some kind of rare and ultra expensive. The hand painting job is not the greates neighther. It is just your standardar gold and aged finish, Seller is asking $37.50 for the couple of pieces here picture and description:

"Up for auction is a Set of 2 1960's OLD CROW Chessmen Decanter Chess Piece Dark Castle & Dark Knight. They stand the same height as a 750ml bottle of liquor. Sorry no liquor included."

To compare with this other seller who saw it painted on blue and red pastels and so think they look like Disney characters, the hand painted job is way better than the golden one above.

Anyway here a whole Duncan set, starting bit at $29.99. thsi is the description and picture:

"hand painted Disney characters chess set two or three have had tops clued back on or chips but most are in great condition felt bottoms very nice old set,zoom in to see details of items for yourself found in storage not sure if they were my moms or grandmas,"

And yes it ends in a coma, here picture:

But those are actually the Old Crow decanters. The Duncan pieces you're talking about are hobby made. I don't know how much the decanters should cost but they're not comparible to one off hobby sets no matter how good the paint job.

This design was made by Limoges France too, and that one I know is a serious collector's set (though I think it's ugly:)

So basically the one on the pictures is some sort of wiskey botles and they look just like the Duncan set? oh well..

I too think it is ugly. On this kind of desings I like the Ganine Gothic one.

I guess I agree there about Ganine being best though I don't like any of those giant heads sets very much. I have one whisky bottle set which I do like, Beneagles Scotch.

There too, though, it's odd because there's a hobby set, not as popular as Duncan, which looks like a copy of the Beneagles set at first but when you put them next to each other you see it's not even close. It's as if someone made the copy by looking only at pictures of the original.

Well all this all is off topic, but it might be interesting to see a Duncan set next to the Old Crow bottles and the Limoges version. They look like they could have come from the same molds but looks can be decieving. 

faces on chess pieces are just creepy.