House of Staunton Review

Hello,

I have just ordered the Superior Grandmaster chess set from HOS so I'm hoping to have made the right decision and it is a nice set as it will be my first. I got a black slidetop box and Ebonized and natural boxwood pieces They have a decent discount on at the minute. I am also hoping I don't get any issues with shipping as I am in the UK.

k3ny0n1990,

When it comes to wood sets the HoS makes some of the best ones out there.  You should be fine with getting this into the UK as long as they include a copy of the invoice along with the package for the customs people.

Thanks for your reply, ShelbyLohrman. I had factored in the import charges with the discount they were offering at the time. What do you mean by "fine getting this into the UK" what problems have there been in the past if any with chess sets?

I've been looking to acquire a quality wooden chess set for study. I got excited by the current HoS promotion, had an eye on the Championship Series in Golden Rosewood, and have since been let down by some of the commentary here, all within a few days, ha. Think I'll just pick up some of the higher quality plastic pieces along with a mousepad board for the time being, and continue debate on the wooden pieces.  

Would RCM's Tournament Chess Pieces be the better buy? Currently $85 but it looks like they have a slightly smaller base than the HoS equivalent. The Classic II Series from HoS (also a German Knight) would be $80 witht the current discount. Maybe that's the better acquisition but I'm hesitant to pull the trigger. If anyone has any comparative thoughts or opinions, I'll take them!

Just remember that there really no such thing as "Golden Rosewood"  That was just a re-name of the Sheesham wood to make it sound better.

Shelby

I don't know, I got excited with the discount lol. And even with import duty it is a better chess set for the price I was willing to pay in the UK.

Yes, that I know. I was just using their naming convention. I'll have to dig into the forum archives to see if folks have thoughts on these lower end offerings from RCM vs. HoS. My guess is that they are just about comparable.  

Don't worry about it, like I said, even with import duty the set i have bought is exactly what I am looking for. I don't like the one you posted but thanks for looking.

Congrats! I hope your order goes through smoothly.

Thank you, I'm pretty excited to be honest. It should arrive on Monday!

I was going to purchase one of their reproduction sets (UK) which looked gorgeous but I wasn't sure about their policy: "Charges like Custom and Import Duty, VAT or Sale Tax are not included".

I emailed to get an all inclusive price but got a reply that didn't help in the slightest and mildly sarcastic so I bought a set from elsewhere.

I just set up "The Queen's Gambit" inspired chess set from The House of Staunton. Based on the poor reviews, it took me awhile to muster the courage to purchase one, but I can honestly say that the set is beautiful. For $225.39 (with a pre Black Friday discount), I received a tournament dimension, annotated board, triple weighted pieces, a mahogany slide-top box, and a
deluxe chess board bag.

The House of Staunton LEADS, and everybody else FOLLOWS ie. everybody copies whatever HoS is doing. I started with HoS Marshall Plastic Chess pieces 3.75" in Natural and Black. This is a HEAVY weighted set and is about the only one I can use because of my Parkinson's Disease. I don't even try playing with unweighted sets as I will usually knock pieces all over the place, some of which find there way to the floor. These pieces take a true beating. Even other "heavy weighted" pieces are no match to the HoS Marshall set simply because the plastic is to fragile. The only other set that compares to the HoS Marshall set is the old Drueke "fire hydrant" pieces which were really indestructible pieces -- they did not simply have the refinement of the HoS Marshall set. Yes, the HoS set will break and crack if handled roughly, but IMHO is the set to beat. And from 10 feet away you really have a hard time telling if it is PLASTIC SET or a WOOD SET.

I also bought many years ago, one of the HoS WOOD sets. It is one of the Luxury Collector Series set in Boxwood and Rosewood with a 4.0" King. I matched this with a custom made board w / 2.5" squares in Purple Heart and Curly Maple, with a 4" Rosewood Boarder, with a Spalted Maple delimiter and corners, and Bloodwood Inlay. To compensate for my tremors, I had rubber feet added at each corner. The border was coated with a High Gloss finish but the board playing surface is coated with a Satin finish. The colors of the board and the pieces seem to flow into each other creating a chess set that is playable art. Pictures of the set are floating around somewhere on chess.com. Final note: The pieces are heavily weighted and a person wanted to see if the King could be knocked over with ease (not that he wanted to, he just wanted too how hard it would be to knock the King over. Both the King and the Queen tend to be self righting. When not is use the pieces are stored in a two tray Red Burl Fitted Chess Coffer, that has a Brass Plaque, that identifies the name of the pieces, wood type, date of purchase, that is in addition to the the Paper Certificate. In short this a a HoS One of a Kind set, which can be tied directly back to me.

If you bought any HoS product, be it wood or plastic, you have bought a QUALITY SET that likely to last a life time. BTW my ORIGINAL PLASTIC MARSHALL set is still in use, and forms part of my "Ultimate Road Warrior Kit". I bought the largest chess bag I could find, bought a heavy duty roll up board, then some one gave me a "Mouse Pad" board, so both boards are now in the bag, and I purchased a Chronos II Chess Clock (back in the day when they were still affordable) because of the LOW slung profile which made it impossible for me to tip over, unlike the BHB Special Analog mechanical clocks I grew up with and and was the de facto tournament standard. Today, if I owned one, it would probably be broken because I's probably keep knocking it over. Too analog clocks are OUT and the LCD wonderclocks are now IN. I did, several years ago, entertain the idea making a comeback, I entered into 4 unrated tournaments, finished or tied for first in 3, and finished second in the fourth, that said, I also PAID A HIGH PRICE, as after every tournament, I suffered from SEVERE MIGRAINES as well as other health complications. Now I simply play a lot of skittles.

In closing, I started out with a HoS PLASTIC Marshall set, still in use BTW, and it was YEARS before decided to by a WOOD set, and what made that decision for me was HoS was running a SALE, and after knocking the idea around for a long time decided to take the plunge, I am truly glad I did! I spent between the pieces, and coffer, and later the custom made board, probably around $1,000 (about $500 for the pieces and another $500 for the custom made board (NOT by HoS), but some guy who was into woodworking and making Custom Chess Boards for people). I'd hate to try and replace the pieces, the coffer, and board today, Today, trying to replace those items would probably cost me in the range of about $4,000 or more, and I would limited to using my PLASTIC Marshall set. If you want to spice up that PLASTIC set of yours, go out and buy a Slide Top Chess Box, and store your pieces in there. They would be far safer in there than the drawstring bag I use I keep them in.

Poor reviews? No vendor is perfect, of course but in my experience (many years and many $'s) HoS is definitely one of the very best.

I mean, sort of. The Indian artisans that the House of Staunton makes use of produce chess pieces for other vendors as well. So it’s not that other vendors copy; it’s that they use the same chess makers in India.

For instance, the Savano Series that HoS offers in two variants was actually designed by Mandeep Saggu as far as I’m aware, and this same set is offered under different names by House of Staunton, Staunton Castle, Antique Chess Crafts, The Chess Store, ChessBazaar, and Taj Chess Store India. They show differences in their total weight and padding. But the knight design is so complex, I seriously doubt there are other chess makers that are copying it; no, they are ALL using the exact same elite artisans in India to craft the wooden pieces, and then use different weighting techniques and felting to finalize the pieces.

Are there designs that originated by House of Staunton that are offered elsewhere? Sure. But many of the chess sets you see at different vendors are simply made by the same artisans HoS uses; HoS doesn’t have its own team of chess makers, but has contracts with Indian chess makers, and not all of those contracts are exclusive.

Not every chess maker offers the same sets, either. Noj has their own sets of fantastic quality, and there are various Ukrainian chess makers who primarily focus on Soviet reproductions. I think it’s not quite right to suggest House of Staunton leads and everyone else follows and copies. What IS true is that House of Staunton elevated the standards of the market, with some vendors still falling behind.

But not everything House of Staunton offers is excellence per se. Some of their Soviet reproductions for instance don’t do the knights justice, and are made better by Ukrainian chess makers. There are a few sets HoS offers which are also offered by Frank Camaratta via Chess Antiques, but with superior quality. A prime example is the Sergei Prokofiev 1937 Russian Chessmen. The knight isn’t a perfect reproduction and for sure Alexander Tchelnokov and his team would do a better job, but this is the very serviceable reproduction offered on Chess Antiques (original shown at the bottom):

Compare that to the same set House of Staunton offers under the name Odessa (while not crediting the source of the design, by the way):

It’s a fun set in its own right, but I think we can agree that the knight is awful as a reproduction. And even if it weren’t a reproduction, the Chess Antiques version is clearly of superior craftsmanship. This same set is offered by two other vendors, by the way (one with different king finials, and another with different knights, which are also better than HoS’ version).

Also, I recently got the Tal set from HoS (the second version, with same-colored finials), which I think is a really beautiful set, and at an amazing price (on clearance) for the quality.

But in terms of the accuracy of the reproduction, Staunton Castle’s recent version which you can now pre-order is far superior.

I love House of Staunton though; I’ve bought three sets from them so far, and my wife bought the plastic Fischer Series set from them which is amazingly heavy for a plastic set, and without mold lines which is frankly astounding for such a low price. I will continue to be one of their clients.

But House of Staunton isn’t the best in every respect. Certainly when it comes to Soviet reproductions, there are far better chess makers. And in terms of service, I haven’t heard anything bad about Noj and Chess Villa yet.

Is House of Staunton a fantastic vendor? Generally, I would say so; among the best. Do they absolutely lead and everyone follows and copies? No, I think that’s a drastic overstatement.

The House of Staunton certainly doesn’t need my insignificant voice to support them, however, over the years I have acquired at least 10 sets from them as well as other equipment, so have some experience to share for whatever it’s worth.

Of the 10 sets, I have sold one (close duplicate to another) and returned another (mistake!). I regret both, but especially the one returned - and it is no longer available. The one set that had an issue was immediately addressed and generously.

I have usually found their pieces to be reliably superior in quality to other Indian makers. I have wondered why this is so since, as Wandel has pointed out, they are probably made by a small number of skilled craftsmen. Frank Camaratta could tell us. My guess is that HoS has agreements that include quality requirements.

I personally don’t give a damn about exactness in reproductions (with a couple of exceptions). I’m more interested in beauty of design (in the eye of the beholder - *me* :-) Keep in mind that Frank Camaratta is the *designer* of many of the HoS pieces. He has let his design sensibilities be *inspired by* a deep knowledge of chess history. I’m far more gratified owning his designs than by whatever efforts to produce ‘exact replicas’ of historic sets - I go to other places for those, e.g. RetroMaximum (ETSY Ukraine), ERLeather (ETSY Ukraine), Wood Ideas (ETSY Ukraine), Indian Chess Company/Chess Bazaar).

Here’s an HoS ‘Cambridge Springs’ set - not close to an accurate reproduction (apparently Chess Bazaar achieved that), but to my eye - and touch - beautiful design and one I love to play:

As an example of my experience with quality, I recently went through 3 manufacturer versions of the Zagreb set, finally ending up with the HoS version. At a glance, the pieces looked the same, but that changed quickly: the HoS set had more heft, better nuances in shape, and better finish quality. The manes on the knights in the two ‘other’ versions were sloppy; not so on the HoS pieces.

This is not to say I don’t buy and enjoy pieces from other manufacturers. I do. But HoS and a *very* few others are the only ones I feel entirely confident of at point of purchase. That’s my experience FWIW.

I forgot whether it was said about HoS or if they described it somewhere, but indeed they have stricter quality control. I remember it was said that Frank Camaratta sends the pieces back to the artisans if he’s not happy with the quality.

Whereas especially the vendors that are directly associated with the artisans will try to sell those lower quality outputs and hope that the customer is fine with the quality.

I’ve also noticed another thing. House of Staunton will sell imperfect sets at a considerable discount, and they are fully transparent about what the issues are. I’ve seen at least one other vendor who also sells imperfect sets, but they offer no photos or descriptions of what is wrong, so you either have to purchase and hope you’re going to be fine with the imperfections, or you will have to contact them to specifically request photos before you buy. In other words, other vendors just aren’t as direct and transparent, and will try to sell lower quality while keeping you in the dark about the quality.

I’ve seen some of those vendors try to convince their unhappy customers that the imperfections of sets that weren’t sold as such are down to the intrinsic variance of handcrafted sets and that it’s part of the art and craft. Really scummy, and lacking accountability or indeed standards.

After collecting for around 8 years, I have only bought one high end-ish set (Tsarist Russian Pieces) from HOS. I bought it at a nice sale price and they allowed me to pay it off over time, while still getting a very good discount.

I was concerned it might not come to me to my OCD standards (my own issue of which I am "not" thrilled to have).....I sent them a text and was politely responded to.

After six months and wondering if I'd get a perfect sample (since the price was so low and so much time had passed) it came.....Literally flawless!

Plus, a nice and classy folder, holding the certificate and extra felts (never saw that before) as well as a nice metallic plate telling the name and date.

To me, HOS is a class outfit. There are others out there. My Noj experience and Chess Villa & S.C. too.....Great folks to deal with.

The HOS experience I had was a bit more surprising, since I'd waited so long and got such a low price.....Those usually don't turn out so good with other sellers.