Buying a nice chess set -- where do I begin?

I've gotten back into chess recently, and I'm really having fun with it. The only chess set I have is a tournament/travel set (plastic pieces and vinyl board) that I bought twenty-eight years ago at Leavitt & Pierce in Boston. Like me, it is showing its age. The pieces are chipped and worn, the white queen has been broken and glued back together, and the board will never be quite flat again. I'm finally in a position to look at wood pieces and boards, thinking of getting myself something nice for my next birthday. But... where to start?

It's less the price question, since "how much should I spend" is probably best answered with "how much can you afford," but more about how I would try them out. While how the pieces feel in my hand is paramount, I'm kinda stuck at the point of not really knowing what I like, either by feel or aesthetics. Is there a way to demo pieces? Should I upsize from a 3.75" king? I think I may not even know what questions to ask, not knowing what I don't know.

If you know of a FAQ about this, or a well-developed thread, I'd love to see the link. If you have advice, I'd really appreciate that, too. I'm looking for a place to start. Thank you.

Yeah, I've been looking at HoS gear since it's what's in the chess.com shop, but there's so much to choose from that I get kinda paralyzed. And yes, the books and equipment forum would definitely be the place for me to cross-post this question; I guess I just hadn't scrolled down far enough to find it. Thanks! 

It's very cool looking! (We're talking about the Wegiel folding one, right?) I hadn't thought of going with something other than traditional/Staunton, but now I'm thinking of other options. Thanks!

Hmm this is hard to answer. It would be like asking what car should I buy. I would suggest you figure out the style you like first. Then you can consider budget and material (wood, plastic, metal, bone, etc). As for style, generally speaking, there probably 6 main designs you can select:

1. Traditional Staunton - Here is an 1849 set from Staunton Castle https://stauntoncastle.com/products/copy-of-nathaniel-1849-antique-reproduction-vintage-3-75-ebony-box-wood-without-antique-look-chess-set?_pos=7&_sid=977eb0a48&_ss=r

2. Traditional French - Here is a thread about the B210 from TCE https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chess-empire-chavet-b210-repro-different-woods-incoming?page=4

3. Traditional Soviet - Here is a 1940 Soviet set from Chess Bazaar https://www.chessbazaar.com/offers-zone/backorder/reproduced-1940-soviet-club-chess-set-in-ebony-ivory-white-4-king.html

4. Traditional Dubrovnik - Here is a 1950 Dubrovnik from Staunton Castle: https://stauntoncastle.com/collections/reproduced-antique-chess/products/reproduction-1950-dubronvink-series-vintage-antiqued-chess-set

5. Traditional German - Here is a review of a German knight set https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/lowly-german-knight-chessmen-get-an-upgrade-to-first-class

6. Modern design - Here is a new thread where the OP shows a bunch of 4 ornately carved knights and 1 vintage knight https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/the-five-knights-of-lockdown

You must have a vague ballpark of what your budget is and what size do you want? These are judgement questions that do not need pieces in your hand to decide. 

Is your budget $50? $250? $500? 

Do you want a small travel size in folding board? Tournament size? 4.4" King display set?

Plastic or Wood? These both have pros and cons.

If you legitimately want constructive help, you need to put some thought into these basic questions first.

I would suggest House of Chess if you are seeking to get a wooden set. Best bang for your buck and their quality is quite good. I have had maybe one or two sets that had a minor defect. Quickly sent out replacements. They do sell a Drueke 820.40 clone set. Which is my favorite set from them. If you want plastic. House of Staunton should be fine. Wholesale Chess is apart of HoS but have a few different sets that are not apart of HoS inventory.

For wood pieces, there are a number of places with good value.  The House of Staunton, The Chess Store, Chess Bazaar, Staunton Castle, and Empire Chess are all good sources.

For plastic pieces, you can’t go wrong with The Ultimate Chess set from Shelby at American Chess Equipment.

Good luck and let us know how this turns out for you.

All good suggestions. I have been eyeing the Staunton Castle Dubrovnik set for a while. It has really grown on me. It also is a good size for playing. Note that SC makes it in 3 variations. In addition, SC will sell it in padauk for the same price as ebony. 

Welcome to the place to spend all yo money!  Not just all of it, ALL of it!

You mentioned that the feel of the pieces is paramount.  To that end there is absolutely no substitute for making a pilgrimage to a real, live chess shop or two.  All the suggestions to look over particular styles and designs via web sites is an excellent approach to narrow down your search to a preferred style (or 6...  but they can't address your primary criteria, "how to they feel?".  There are still some shops around but they'll likely require some hunting and some travel bucks.

Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought HoS maintained a physical store at some point - can anyone confirm?  You know you always wanted to take a trip to 'Bama...  

For plastic I'd like to put in a good word for Legend Products' (https://www.legendproduct.com/index.html) Alegria.  (The set is much more awesome than the web site!

Also, the Best Chess Set Ever's (https://www.bestchesssetever.com) quad-weighted XL is a beast!  A very, very nice beast!

Thanks Richard! The SC set is very nice. The knight's face has a lot of detail that the Noj knight does not have. There is an original reference set that has those additional details. Personally I like their stained antiqued/vintaged set. Normally I don't like artificial antiquing but that one in particular looks really good to me. 

I think that the best choice is an official FIDE chess.
Size of the keyboard, pieces and so on, all need to be official.

I have a not official set, I need to adapt myself everytime I play in a club, where they use an official set, because the pieces are different. I once confused the bishop with the queen.

I prefer plastic parts to wooden ones, because they last longer and don't crack.

WOW! I just looked up and saw the clock -- I've been sitting here for nearly three hours looking at all the links and suggestion y'all gave me. 

@MCH818 and @RichardHG, those recommendations were a great jumping-off point, thank you. I'd been thinking "yeah, probably Staunton" since my set is Staunton. I had no idea that there were that many different kinds of Staunton! 

@Eyechess, I found a really good comparison page at The Chess Store, thanks! That will certainly help me narrow down what I like and don't like.

@KnightsForkCafe, yeah, House of Chess has some really nice stuff (and a super useful filter!). Yeah, as I said, wood is what I'm looking at and they seem to have some really affordable choices. I didn't know what a Drueke 820.40 was but conveniently your post here on chess.com was the first link Google offered me!

@GrandPatzerDave, oh... oh yeah, this could get habit-forming. I am officially banned from buying any more fountain pens until some leave the house ("one in, one out" is the rule now; don't even ask about my watches), so I get the but, but, just one more, it's so pretty mindset. With this many options, it would be very easy to start *ahem* collecting. I looked at that Alegria set, and aside from having a chuckle at the Web 1.0-ness of the site, those look burly. If I weren't focusing on wood, those would be an easy choice. As far as a brick-and-mortar chess store, aside from the local game shops that have only one or two sets at most, and the mall tobacconists' "gift" chess sets, I'm in a bit of a chess desert. Add that to no travel right now and getting my hands on anything is gonna be tough. But I'll figure something out, I hope.

@Pan_troglodites, my plastic pieces have certainly lasted, that's for sure. But now that I'm old enough that I'm not moving around as much, having a nice wooden set of board and pieces to play with at home is my goal. As far as the FIDE/official choice, that's what I have now (assuming tournament and FIDE regs are roughly the same thing? 2.25" squares and 3.75" kings?), and it's what's familiar, so it's likely the size I'll stick with. For reference, these are my old pieces. They're broken (and repaired), chipped, the injection molding artifacts were so sharp I had to sand some of them down, and the knights sit juuust a bit off-center on their bases. But, despite sitting in their bag for the last few years, they've lasted nearly three decades with rough use. 

That ended up being a lot longer post than I intended. Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go.

Chess Sets for Club & Tournament Play...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-sets-for-club-tournament-play

Where do I begin? A question which I faced when I wanted a set of pieces to use on my recently returned board which I made in high school, 50 odd years ago. I too ended up here, looking at the myriad of set styles. I searched around and found one style which I liked the most, Dubrovnik. From there I embarked on a search of who made a Dubrovnik set which I liked among the various manufacturers and who would fit my budget. I settled on Chess Bazaar V3.0 which satisfied my tastes. Take your time and see which you like the most.

Since then, I have picked out several styles which I like. As the budget allows, I will select the style and set which best meets my desires and then I will purchase. People here will offer their opinions, but in the end it will all boil down to what do YOU find appealing to your mind and tastes.

I do need to add that the wisdom and experience on this forum is extensive and very helpful to those of us who are just beginning to collect. Thank you to all of you who frequent this place.

I had the same dilemma so I went looking for an antique set with some good history. I ended up with a Savonarola set that was purchased in Italy in 1978, complete with a set of cast pieces made in Italy in the 1950’s. The cast pieces were difficult to tell apart, so i bought a nice House of Staunton set  https://www.dropbox.com/s/qn36aqc7k0mtlv6/Photo%20Jul%2020%2C%204%2007%2006%20PM.jpg?dl=0

Lots of great advice already. I would only add that you should think about how/where the set will be used.  If it's for mixed playing in park and at home,  blitz and rapid games then plastic would be a very good choice. 

If for studying and playing at home in non-blitz time controls then I would start thinking about wood sets. 

After considering many of the options presented here, carefully deciding what I like and don't like, and sorting through the dizzying array of woods and finishes and styles and sizes and weights, I decided to get myself... a new plastic set. A nice wood set is/will be a big investment, and I want to make a choice I like and understand. So, to do that, I'll be passing my very old, very used, current set pictured above to the chess club at the elementary school near me, and I'll be replacing it with an set of ACE butters*, discussed here, and a wenge and rosewood mousepad board. It'll give me the feel of good heavy pieces (I weighed my set out of curiosity and it's 1lb 1.25oz including the flannel bag; the butters are the better part of 4lbs), it'll be a definite board upgrade, and it'll scratch my itch for a new set without breaking the bank. Thank you all so much again for all the suggestions and direction. 

*They're technically the WE Games Ultimate Tournament Staunton Chessmen in Butter Yellow and Black, but over on the thread I linked, the Folks Who Know™ are just calling them butters. So I'm callin' 'em butters.

I can vouch for this one. Great quality and very reasonable on the price. The only negatives (which are not major) are:

- that it's not the most accurate reproduction.

- Also, aesthetically the queen feels a bit fat necked