Official FIDE vs FIDE Style. A review and comparison of Chess House's FIDE pieces

My journey to find a quality FIDE set is finally complete. I bought Chess House's FIDE Style set and I'm very happy with it. I've previously bought official sets from World Chess back in December, and the set was of astonishingly low quality. I tried again not long ago, and although better, that set was also bad enough that I have to return it.  Upon recommendation from members of this forum as well as a real life friend, I decided to buy the FIDE style pieces from Chess House. At $199, they are nearly have the price of the official pieces. And despite that lower price, I'm happy to report they are of much higher quality.

My Chess House set only has two problems worth mentioning upon close inspection. One of the black knights has a tiny spot where it wasn't ebonized, and one of the black Queens arrived with a cracked crown. I e-mailed Chess House about the issue, and they promptly sent me a replacement Queen. It arrived in less than a week. The replacement black Queen has a slightly different colored green felt than the original two, but that doesn't bother me at all. In addition, I'm planning on re-felting the set to the color scheme of the official set so it's a moot point.

The missed spot of ebonization on the black Knight is barely noticable. I wouldn't even be mentioning it if I weren't examining the set very closely, as I did with the World Chess set.

The damaged Queen would definitely be an issue, but as I said Chess House quickly replaced it. Below are many pictures comparing the Official World Chess set, and the FIDE Style set from Chess House. In all photos, the World Chess set is on the left, and Chess House is on the right.

Interesting comparison and congrats on finally finding a set you like! It looks to me like there are some pros and cons to the ChessHouse set but on the whole I'd say I prefer them in most of your photos. Some of your World Chess pieces are just exceptionally lousy!

If you want to give the official FIDE WCC pieces one last, LAST chance, HoS currently has a 20% Memorial Day sale code to knock the price down to $360. It'll be on your doorstep by Thursday. And then you can make the ultimate FINAL, "forever hold your peace" decision.

A 3-way comparison smackdown would be pretty epic content for the forum. Haha!!

I don't follow, @Pawnerai. I thought @OptimusBlunders's photos *are* the World Chess pieces vs the ChessHouse replicas. HoS is just reselling World Chess pieces, it appears. Am I misunderstanding?

Yes. I'm half-seriously, suggesting to give the WCC pieces one last chance seeing as they are currently on sale. Dealing with a domestic retailer rather than World Chess directly may give different results. Or may not. HoS may be easier to deal with if/when replacing damaged product. But seeing as @OptimusBlunders may be at his wits end, it might be best to just call it a day and enjoy the set!

To me, the difference in knight carving is quite disappointing. The FIDE set has a longer snout, smaller ears, and the base is “rounded” whilst still being angular.

The ChessHouse knight looks squat in comparison, with very sharp edges. It’s more leaning French Lardy in some parts then Daniel Weil.

Thanks very much for a great comparison review and all those photos!  I had wondered if I would actually like the Chess House set better than the World Chess set - your review clarified that for me in spades: the Chess House set is definitely my preference!

You do know that you can order the FIDE set from HoS and probably others that are stateside?  At least then you get to hassle on the same continent!  Or maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones, who knows?  

From what I've seen many of the minor differences are not from poorer craftsmanship but actually stem from an earlier model/design of the FIDE sets. I believe Chess House's version is based off of the earlier FIDE chess sets. There are many very minor differences but I'll use for example the Queens.  The flatter Queen's crown is evident in 2021 Magnus vs Nepomniatchi. But if you look at 2018 Magnus vs Caruana or 2016 Magnus vs Karjakin you'll see the more dome shaped Queens crown. 

Magnus vs Caruana 2018

Magnus vs Karjakin 2016 also has the dome Queen.

2021 Magnus vs Nepomniatchi 

Putting the small version design differences aside the Chess House sets quality is much higher and in line with the quality I've seen from the other major vendors.

@OptimusBlunders • Very interesting.

As a fan of industrial design I think I prefer the Chess House version. Especially if you are trying to collect an official tournament set and this set is based on a 2016 set. Also especially if you can get a nice set that does not have a bunch of production issues.

I find it ironic that the set was obviously designed to be easy to make and reproduce. Yet the poor quality you noted in your previous thread showed that if cheap is the priority, lack of quality is the price which actually discourages buyers. If the official set was made better, more people would probably be buying it rather than returning it or simply avoiding it in the first place. For example after reading about it on Chess.com. A place where it’s likely a lot of their potential customers share experiences like yours.

I have been debating buying a nice set from House of Staunton this week. The set is one of their clearance sets and I worry that after paying for it I will not be able to return it or get replacements pieces in the future. I called them last week and was told that if a piece arrives broken or damaged they would replace it, but after that I’m on my own.

Does anyone have any good or bad experiences with HoS that they can share to help me decide? I’ve never bought from them before so I have no idea what to expect.

Thanks for any guidance, advice, amusing anecdotes.

My rule of thumb for buying a chess set is to either purchase it directly from the maker, and therefore I am certain that replacements can be produced if needed (NOJ, Biro Sandor, Oldset, Incaisa, etc), or choose standardized sets that will remain in production (ChessHouse FIDE etc).

I will not buy a “one-off” from HoS for that reason.

Hi. Thank you for your response @VBerriz. 

I am new to buying a nice, proper chess set and have never had one. So I am unfamiliar with the producers you mention. I understand the concept though. 

When I called HoS I asked if they were discontinuing this design. The woman on the phone told me she did not think so, the sets were simply on clearance. Apparently “Clearance, No Exchanges, Returns or Refunds” does not mean “discontinued”. I don’t know.

The set I have in mind is not a fancy, exotic design. Then I would completely agree with you that the risk is relatively high. For example a limited edition, same idea where they are purposely trying to create a rarity of some kind perhaps to justify a high price. My father had a beautiful set that we played with many times over the years. It was made by a long out of touch friend of his decades earlier. The problem was that the pieces were ceramic. When we finally broke one or two or three … that was it. Replacement was impossible.

The set I am looking at is simply another variation of the Jaques/Staunton. I am an artist and have worked with wood before. I feel if I had to I could probably make a replacement or two if I can find the right wood. I do have a lathe among other toys.

Back to the thread here, I agree that sets like the official FIDE set will probably be available one way or the other for a long time. Also dealing with a dealer sometimes gives one leverage and convenience that you don’t get when dealing with a manufacture. You are buying one set or asking them to do more work for the same money on one set. And that may be the only set you buy from them. A dealer might buy 100 sets. If they complain with a 100 set order in the balance (not to mention continuing orders into the foreseeable future), well who do you think has more leverage?

I was simply asking the collector crowd here what their experience was. Does anyone here have less than 3 sets? What happened if you had problems like PrimusBlunder? Did House of Staunton let you down (that’s too bad, but thanks for your money) or did they promptly and earnestly support you and earn a valuable future customer?

Thanks for helping me figuring this out.

@ShadowBoxxr , perhaps it might be helpful to link the set at HoS.

In general, HoS is a decent place to purchase from. They are solid quality, Indian made mid-market pieces that are sold at a fairly significant premium, in my opinion. You shouldn’t have significant customer service issues, but I think (especially if you are new to buying nicer chess sets!) you should do some research before moving forward.

If you’d like, send me a PM if you are worried that they will run out of that particular HoS set. Happy to help, want to make sure your money is well spent!

@VBerriz • Thank you so much for your help. I could post a link here or send you a personal message however I don’t know how to send personal messages.

Also at this point I want to avoid derailing the thread. Maybe I should start my own thread about making this purchase and see if I get any feedback. I actually tried something like that last week and one of the responses was that my question was too complicated! That made me laugh. I’ve never posted anything on these forums before last week so I guess I’m still discovering the vibe here.

Let me know how to send you a personal message and I’ll give it a try. Thanks again for the help. 

Just sent you a personal message, let me know if you get it! An easy way to do it is to click on someone else’s name, then the little envelope icon to send a message.

Oh, I see. 

I just replied. Thanks for explaining how.

Went to purchase this set from ChessHouse, and it is no longer for sale - apparently they ran into some IP issues. A shame, it was a solid set!

What an embarrassing joke FIDE has become...it's getting harder and harder to take them seriously when all their credibility lies in the gutter. I'm glad it worked out in the end for the OP. Ending up with a better set for less than half the price is a fit ending after dealing with that clown show.