Description: The state of Arizona is under a stay-at-home order which is making our shipping difficult. We are extending our shipping limit to 20 days. We hope to ship in less time, and we hope soon to be back to our old policy of ten days. We ask for and hope for your patience. Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, chess sets were often made of wood and always made by master craftsmen. Immortal names like "Jaques and Sons" and "Ayres" and "Uhlig" dominated the chess set market. The American manufacturers, William Drueke and sons of Grand Rapids, Michigan, made sets of both wood and plastic. This set is turned in their style. The men are unweighted; the felt is good. Kings are 3 1/2 inches in height with 1 1/2 base diameters. The chess men are made of rosewood and boxwood. An unweighted set can be a good thing, a very good thing. Most weighted chess pieces have a bore hole in the base, with a solid lead plug glued into the hole. This makes the pieces bottom-heavy, and thus more stable. It also gives the piece a satisfying "heft." The drawback is that lead and wood have different thermal expansion rates, and over time small cracks, which eventually become noticeable, develop at the bottom of the pieces. Unweighted pieces do not have this problem. If you are looking for a gift set, this is the set to get. We enclose the set in an "San Cristobal" cigar box for storage. If you want to display this set in your living room, you can play The Most Interesting Man in the World and say, "I do not always play chess, but when I do, I use the Drueke-style Unweighted," and then open up the box. We also add in this board. It is a vinyl board, as you can see in the photographs; the footprint of the board is 20 inches by 20; each square is 2 1/8 inches square. Board shipped separately. I, Ed Yetman, have been a tournament director for 40 years and verify that this set is legal for tournament play according to the U.S. Chess Federation rules, and though other directors may disagree I am confident none will. If you are a fan of the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit, this item is for you. We combine shipping! To combine, place all your purchases in the shopping cart and press "proceed to checkout." Follow us! We found a number of antique sets! We have an ongoing sale of 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st century chess clocks, books, and sets! Watch for our big sales!
Price: 259 USD
Location: Tubac, Arizona
End Time: 2023-11-29T23:04:51.000Z
Shipping Cost: N/A USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Material: Wood
Year: 1980
Color: wood tones
Recommended Age Range: 18+
