the story of my two chess sets:
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Aw, the knubble set is adorable. I love how odd sizes or dimensions allow a designer to "break the rules" and yet still have it work.
This is for all the other Poverty Players out there. Seeing too many nice chess sets made me want to find something, and while doing research I happened across a pretty amazing deal for way less than you'd think. Pictures first.
This is a 30cm board with ~31mm squares, laminate top, of a design and make I'm pretty sure comes out of India. It's a scratch and dent deal, so there's some light bubbling, but I can't spot it in play, so as far as I'm concerned I got a pretty good deal. As part of that deal, I got a cinch bag of standard plastic 2.5" analysis pieces, but they were definitely overcrowded on this board. So I started looking for an alternative, but these are *weird* square sizes, so I probably wasn't going to find anything, right?
I managed to get lucky. These wood pieces were a separate acquisition. 53mm King, burgundy felt, unspecified woods with a light stain of varnish. The quintessential "German Knight" design, also of Indian make, is easy to understand. The wood feels good in the hand, and I can even play blitz with them. It's obviously not perfect; the light pieces aren't all the same shade, and the base of a white rook is slightly uneven, but I intend to acquire a second set for the spare queens and use the extra pieces to perform my own DIY quality control.
Total cost: $35 shipped. No, really.
did I mention it's easy to take up and down the stairs with me?
I dropped a travel piece on the board and it turns out the board is mmagnetic, which wasn't advertised. I was initially going to DIY magnetic pieces with similar wood pieces bought cheaply, but it turns out one seller does supply such a set on its own. My analysis board has never taken up less space without being folding.
And the magnets, while not perfectly consistent, are good enough that we can still play blitz with these pieces, with just the right amount of pull to imitate the feeling of weighted pieces.
This deal is still available as of writing. Chess House has it as a 12" board in their offers and deals section, and the magnetic pieces are available on Amazon (the only place I could find these specific ones, oddly enough). Here are the links:
(edit) forgot the links, whoops. Board and Pieces
(2. ...edit!) King is not 63mm but 53mm
Apr 29, 2022
0
#104
That's got to be the biggest magnetic board I've ever seen...and the pieces seem to fit fine. Smokin' deal for 35. bucks!
I typo'd the king's height, it's actually 53mm. 63mm would be the easier to find 2.5". For the sake of comparison, here are the analysis pieces the board came with, with US coins for scale. 
We have one of these old radio shack computer chess boards around here somewhere. Would love to play it right now...but unfortunately I haven't seen it since I let my kids play with it, so I'll have to post a stock pic for now.
Was a pretty nice unit that my dad got for us back in the 1980s.
Recently I bought the 1972 Fischer - Spassky Wch chess set from House of Staunton. Set me back about $230, but with a nice mahagony box to boot and no shipping fees, that's a bargain.
I didn't buy the chessboard with it, I've had that one for a while.
Excuse the poor quality of the light, it's a fairly cloudy morning here today.
My Dubrovnik 1950
nojchess wrote:
My Dubrovnik 1950
@nojchess Is this an original?! The board certainly appears to be and that knight does not match your offering, nor Mandeep's!
Yes, it is original!
May 1, 2022
0
#112
^^^Humble apologies....it's condition is so mint that I presumed it must be one of your new ones. That's truly an amazing prize. Congrats!
nojchess wrote:
Yes, it is original!
@nojchess
Thank you for sharing your incredible acquisition with us. I wasn't aware that anybody who was in possession of one of these sets would ever part with it. Could you tell us a little about the history of this set and how it came into your possession?
@michaelcausey7 thank you
@Ibuildchess
In 2020, the museum in Dubrovnik hosted the 70th anniversary of the Chess Olympics. In honor of this event, all original items from this Olympics were on display. Most of the objects were the property of the well-known Croatian chess collector, Professor Zdenko Krištafor. I traced his name in a newspaper article about this exhibition and found his email on the internet. First he kindly thanked me for not being interested in selling. 6 months later he contacted me himself and we agreed on price.
nojchess wrote:
@michaelcausey7 thank you
@Ibuildchess
In 2020, the museum in Dubrovnik hosted the 70th anniversary of the Chess Olympics. In honor of this event, all original items from this Olympics were on display. Most of the objects were the property of the well-known Croatian chess collector, Professor Zdenko Krištafor. I traced his name in a newspaper article about this exhibition and found his email on the internet. First he kindly thanked me for not being interested in selling. 6 months later he contacted me himself and we agreed on price.
*email sent*
This had been by point for years & when I had raised this up with the noj gang over the design of the 50s knight / was slated by them ,
I hope noj will now make a better copy of the 50s knight / for the rest what a nice rare gem
@lighthouse yes it is a very nice rare gem, which I will be selling in the near future.
nojchess wrote:
@lighthouse yes it is a very nice rare gem, which I will be selling in the near future.
Are you going to sell this chess set ? or make a better copy of the knight ?
michaelcausey7 wrote:
So many beautiful sets have been deleted from this thread that I can't bear it. We must rebuild...I found a few pics of my knubble set so I'll start. I've always been a fan of queens with spikey crowns so I threw in a close up at the end. Bent Larson was a fan of the knubble set so I made a little tribute to his victory over the "Iron Tigran". I've got a new lens I want to try out, so more will be coming next week or so.
They weren't deleted, Its still there. It's called Post Your Chess Sets. All of the photos from the last 8 years of wonderful chess sets is still archived there.
So many beautiful sets have been deleted from this thread that I can't bear it. We must rebuild...I found a few pics of my knubble set so I'll start. I've always been a fan of queens with spikey crowns so I threw in a close up at the end. Bent Larson was a fan of the knubble set so I made a little tribute to his victory over the "Iron Tigran". I've got a new lens I want to try out, so more will be coming next week or so.
I didn't love the tiny pawns at first but they grow on you.