The Packrat’s Journey

In what has become a substantial thread written over several years now, our friend Powderdigit has been tracing his journey *collecting* (a loaded term!) chess sets. The thread is called “The Five Knights of Lockdown”. I just stumbled across it and started reading from the beginning not realizing how long it was. Many others here have engaged in the thread, so various interesting perspectives on chess set designs, motivations for purchasing sets, and motivations behind acquiring sets. When you fall into this ‘gentle madness’ of purchasing chess sets, what are the motivations? How do we justify the irrepressible urge for ‘just one more set’ (‘then I’m done - I really mean it this time!’). And even more interesting is to watch our tastes evolve and sharpen.

Powder suggested I - and others - start threads sharing our journeys. It’s an intimidating place for a neophyte given the serious collectors and scholars here, but here goes - my second attempt!

I thought it was interesting to hear how COVID lockdowns had initially driven Powder to play. Pretty much the same start here. I had played as a kid (nothing serious), but hadn’t played since. During COVID I decided it would be great to try to pick it up again. I had a couple of old Polish (Krakow) sets in folding boxes from the 80s, but decided to buy *one* new set and a board to start studying the game (given my penchant for ‘collecting’ things - always in a hodge podge manner, I should have known I was opening a Pandora’s box! ).

Here are a couple of pictures of the old Polish sets - easily identifiable:

I never use them, but they have a lot of sentimental value - there’s a third set, larger than these but similar, that I purchased in Krakow in the early 2000s.

With the COVID chess ‘renaissance’, I discovered Chess.com and this amazing resource and community, and from there learned about House of Staunton where I purchased my first ‘serious’ set: the ‘Circa 1925’ in boxwood and ebony from the ‘Outlet’ part of the HoS site. And I added a simple veneer board. I was thrilled with the *weighted* (!) pieces and motivated to start learning.

I’ve since sold this set in order to purchase another - the ‘Stroud Club’ from Staunton Castle. It was a mistake to sell the Circa 1925 set, but I was still working under the illusion that I just needed *one* set, the “perfect one”. 😂

And I sold the veneer board and purchased a walnut and white oak Drueke style from Colorado Woodworker (Brad Borkowski). And so I started…

As Powder wrote at the beginning of his thread, the community here is a great - an escape from a world that is very unhappy in many ways and in many places. It’s also a place where you can learn more about yourself, which was not anticipated at the beginning of all this.

A good note to finish on is something Hermanjohnell wrote in a thread somewhere here - I can’t remember verbatim, but the idea was that playing chess happens in the mind and doesn’t require physical pieces, whether plastic or ebony, inexpensive or precious. I keep that in mind as I fight the urge to buy ‘just one more’… We’ll see if I delete this post again (as I did with the last effort, this morning).

First off, I just want to say “thank you”. Thanks for starting the thread and posing interesting questions for us to consider about our collecting journeys. I will respond when I have more time over the next few days and I hope this turns into a fun, positive and constructive thread. Cheers, Mark

Thank you for sharing the story, Baudouin!

Ah, Herman said it in the 'cheap vs. expensive chess set' thread:

"Chess is played in one's head, not on a board, and a chess set is just a prop, necessary only for those of us who cannot keep track of the moves and positions with our minds. The cheapest set, therefore, should do just fine. Another thing is that most of us like to gather possesions (and our excuses are legion).

For practical use, that is for playing chess, there´s no reason to buy (or own) anything more expensive than a decent set of plastic chessmen and a roll up board, preferably tournament sized. Luckily such sets are quite reasonably priced. Once the game is afoot no chess player worth his salt occupies his mind with thoughts about of what materials the pieces and board used are made of (..)"

A prop- wonderful! As if you would not need pieces in your head to play blindfold. Of course it is lovely Herman style: ".. no chess player worth his salt.." I mostly agree, I would not shy away a second from playing with any kind of practical pieces. I like to try any given set, ordinary or special. But I have found myself noticing the beauty of the playing material or the lack of it during play.

But far from thinking 'hey, what kind of chess player am I (to even entertain such thoughts)' I think that's okay- because the props are key. It would be very interesting to know what sorts of pieces blindfold players use in their minds.

One driving force in my collecting of chess sets is to catch the international spirit by collecting tournament and/or household sets from around the world. Another is fascination for traditions, like French, Russian, Spanish or British chessmen (or, of course, German).

This leads into the direction of historical sets, another force, to capture the waves of development over centuries and centuries. Then, there is the history of the game, leading us to marvel at museum pieces from chaturanga and shatranj. I have not started to go there, but it is obvious that, of the few things that survived from the early history of the game, many of them look like great candidates for reproductions. There are not so many, so you have a field there you can contain. Looking at the history necessarily leads us to other games of the family tree of which chess is a branch, many close neighbours with their own beautiful sets of pieces, again with the promise that one or two samples of each already would do a lot, would represent the glimpse we want to give and have very well.

Coming back to flea markets on and offline, another attraction are lovely small sets with a touch of idiosyncrasy, handed down to us with a bit of luck. 

Hmmm... Am I missing something or has bad vodka made me partially blind? I can´t read the story in the original post. Lovely sets, BTW.

You can, by logging out and read it white on black.. or by 'highlighting' the white void, marking the text makes it visible. I have seen many incidents of this magic ink, but how do Powder or baudouin fabricate it? Thank you

Thanks!

The pieces yoy visualize in your mind are true - das Ding an sich - but those pieces of wood (or whatever) you shuffle around are just props. But they are good for collecting. Or hoarding...

Bad vodka definitely (of course, as the proud owner of several Polish sets might suggest, I question whether wodka can ever be ‘bad’ - false news!), but here’s the secret to the invisible ink:

….. That’s all I can share!

Ok @baudouin27 you called for it… 😊

Thoughts and contradictions from Powderdigit

The biggest joy in collecting is not the sets but the people I have met, along with the conversations and learning that I have had along the way. I now have friends across the globe who I consider friends and if I ever pass their way - would enjoy a drink and chat at a local watering hole.

Wooden chess pieces are my focus, currently I enjoy learning about vintage French sets and I am fortunate to own numerous variants of Chavet, Lardy and others.

When I started collecting, I was fascinated by intricate carving; detailed knights and large heavy pieces. I still admire the skills of the artisans that create them.

I buy less reproductions now but some are magnificent; again the skill, combined with the technology available to the modern carver is amazing. Regarding reproductions - I am less interested in exact replication and more interested in the look, balance and feel of the set. As a recent example, I purchased an 1849 reproduction - I have no idea of its exact accuracy but my gosh, it’s a beautiful set to display and play.

When I buy a modern set - original or reproduction - if it is marketed as flawless I want it to be flawless. With vintage sets - I don’t mind the dings, dents and marks of use … unless pieces are actually broken. I have little (i.e., no) interest in buying incomplete or broken sets.

Buying from international vendors can be fraught with the possibility of not getting what is advertised. I have purchased many sets from many vendors and fortunately, if I have had a problem - it has been resolved. I remain wary whenever I purchase sight unseen.

I use nearly all in my wooden playing sets. I take them to the pub - wherever. I store them like they would be stored historically-jumbled in a box. Maybe if I had hugely valuable sets I would take great care of but I want my sets to be used and age like they were designed to be. (At one stage in my collecting, I started to store pieces like they were fine china in metal protective cases - not now.)

The combination of playing and collecting is changing what is important for me. I now like lightly weighted pieces that are well balanced in the hand. I prefer sets where the kings is around 8.5cm-9.5cm (3..35”-3.75”)… say 4” max.

I think the bases on many modern sets are too large; that said, I dislike very narrow bases. It seems some historical sets are near perfect but in an effort for even greater stability modern reproductions seem to have added wide bases. I find this frustrating because it means the sets require a bigger boards … this is a pain for me because I like to take pieces to the pub and play.

On boards, I have many and my joy there comes from refurbishing and reconditioning older boards. Chess collecting has meant I need to develop woodworking skills; I now find woodworking enjoyable too and appreciate the advice I have had from many in this forum regarding woodworking. See : Antique Table in an Amateur's Hands: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

I do not buy for investment purposes. It’s a hobby. Provenance is critical for investment pieces and expensive sets. I have many pieces that I know are old but sometimes with limited provenance; that’s ok for me.

The market for authentic historical Jaques sets has passed me by. I admire them but they are not in my price range. I enjoy chess - playing and collecting - but my reality is that I have no interest in paying many hundreds or thousands of dollars for individual chess sets. In saying that - I enjoy viewing the sets and I am envious of those with large collections of Jaques pieces.

I do not focus on figural sets but I have 3 figural sets that will stay in my collection and at least 5 others that will be hard to pass on, if I decide to sell them.

Some plastics pieces are much better than I expected; there are at least 5 plastic and Bakelite sets that will remain in my collection. See thread: Plastic, Not Fantastic.

I thank Walter, Holger and many others for sharing their expertise and knowledge and through such …opening my mind to the broad and varied sets we can collect.

See: The five knights of Lockdown to understand the full catastrophe of my collecting journey.

My journey continues and I am sure the thoughts noted above will change in future and indeed, I have probably forgotten a bunch of stuff which I will add in due course.

Cheers,

Mark

PS Below are my seven favourite chess sets for playing. Don’t hold me to them… tomorrow or any other day, I may have a different range of pieces, that take my fancy. I change my mind - a lot! This list does not include themed or figural pieces.

1. GM Sandor Biro - Romanian Hungarian - red stained maple 2022

2. Henri Chavet - No. 4 - green stained Jura (wood from Jura mountains) - circa 1970’s.

3. Royal Chess Mall 1950’s Dubrovnik Reproduction - mahogany stained boxwood - 2023

4. Chess Villa - 1849 Jaques Reproduction / mahogany stained boxwood - 2024

5. Philippines Staunton - kamagong and Narra wood - 1972

6. Bakelite ‘magistral knight’ - Caramel and Maroon Bakelite - circa 1950’

7. Slim Stem ‘dogface’- Jura wood (wood from Jura mountains, I think) - early 20th century

Special mention

- Lardy -1974 Olympiad edition- Size 3.

- Danish Union - wooden circa 1950’s

- Austrian Coffee House - fruit wood and black stained - circa 1900