Post your New Staunton Chess Sets that Cost under $100

Would make a nice Christmas present, or a welcomed addition to anyone's Xmas list.

I have a Cavalier Set from Pacific with those large knights. It is a classic and have it in mint condition with original box. The rivaled the Drueke plastic sets at one time. 

I love the old Cavaliers from Pacific Games.  Fortunately, good specimens are routinely available on eBay - at much less cost than the Drueke sets.  

HOS offers the "Winchester" set, which appears to be influenced by the Cavalier.  It's over $100, so off-topic here, but still reasonably priced.

Since no one else has posted this, here's the wooden "ChessCafe Special Chess Set."  This one is less than fifty bucks.  The bad news is that they've been out of stock for a while.  Sorry for the poor quality pics.  I would starve as a photographer.

Great set for under $50, What size?  Maybe we should start another thread for sets under $50 as I bought one for $34.50 I play with everyday. Mine does not have the detail as yours' though. My knight is fairly plain. It's a struggle for me to take pictures. It is just the regular HOS club special 4"K they cleared out but the new set looks the same.

The king is right at 4 inches, maybe a little less, and the base is 1.5 inches.  The 1.5 inch base is a little light for 2.25 inch squares but for the money spent it's a good value.  The set used to real popular.  I've sent Chess Cafe an e-mail asking when/if it will be back in stock.  House of Staunton has basically the same set with a 3.75 inch king, at a higher price point (big surprise).

Hey Crappov, A nice set for 50 bones!! Thanks for posting it

Aside from being a great looking sets at a great price, this set is fantastic for blitz chess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rs_iT8bm50

Mike, I don't play blitz (move fast loose fast) but I agree, these pieces are brilliant...they look great, they feel great, and they're very nice to play with OTB. They are still my pick for set of the year and should, I believe, be an instant classic. I recommended that Vikramjit also make it available in Boxwood/Ebony. Cheers, John C.😎

ChessBazaar D0179:

Unfortunately it is $160.80 now, but when I bought it last year it was $99.99, free shipping.

4" tall king with a 1.8" diameter base, real unstained ebony, weighted with poured-in lead (not iron/steel) and quite heavy.

Hi  John:

Agreed, you have a strong argument for set of the year. And it should  be an instant classic like you say.  The set in Ebony would be great also, but I would like to see it in the crimson stain, which as you know,  is the rage with the CB Dubrovnik 3.6" sets.

I'm happy with the vanilla tournament set they use in Europe except I got mine in black instead of the rosewood stain.

It only cost $65. The pieces have no delicate features to break off easily and it would be cheap to replace.

@MAXIM   Great looking set for $99 and how can you go wrong with lead weights and real ebony and a 4" K.  Very nice.

I have that same set. I got it 15 years ago from the USCF store when they first came out. I'm pretty sure they are all the same regardless of who is selling them. In the original USCF ad, they said the king was "95 mm—between 3-3/4" and 3-7/8"—tall, with a 1-7/16" base":

http://i.imgur.com/tLw3bMx.jpg

In reality, 95mm is 3.74", but whatever. My king measures 3-7/8" on the nose, or just about 3-15/16" if you count the felt.

Either way, it is a 3-3/4" set for all intents and purposes, despite the big cross giving the king, and only the king, a bit of a height boost over its plastic USCF "Club Special" counterpart, which is why I think some sites just list it as a 3-3/4" king. A true 4" king set like my ChessBazaar D0179 pictured above, dwarfs it; the pieces are significantly bigger in both height and girth. In fact, when I first opened up my D0179 set I was surprised at how big it was. I was used to 3-3/4" king sets, and how much of a difference can a quarter inch make, right? Here's a comparison picture:

The only piece that is particularly close in size is the queen, but that's because the plastic "Club Special" pieces, which these are a copy of, have always had a relatively large queen, I assume because it allowed them to reuse most of the mold design from the king.

This one is a little bit of a cheat -- as the list price (in boxwood and ebonized) is $109 before shipping. With frequent sales, however, it can be gotten below $100. I bought a set a couple of months ago for $102 including shipping. (Sheesham lists at $99.)

It's the HoS "Executive" series, 3.75 inch king.

Probably too delicate for blitz or abusive conditions, but it is a very sweet set for the price.

http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-pro-line-series-chess-pieces-4-0-king.html

http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-royale-series-chess-pieces-4-0-king.html

A couple of other candidates -- though the "Royale" is another cheater, as it would have to be gotten on sale to qualify for the $100 cap.

(I do own examples of both. The pro-line knights are better in person. I got the Royale a while back on eBay around $40 -- so mine wasn't a cheat.)

HoS has some fairly nice looking sets in the $100 price range, but never in ebony. I wish they'd stop pretending that ebony isn't dirt cheap (in India anyway, as proven by ChessBazaar). With the HoS sets which are available in ebony, it is like a $150 option on top of the base stained boxwood price.

http://www.chessbazaar.com/the-lotus-series-handcarved-wooden-chess-pieces-in-ebony-box-wood-4-3-king.html

I'm not a fan of that non-Staunton design at all, but look at all that ebony, and for a total price of $44, free shipping. HoS and other companies have long peddled the myth that ebony = $$$ (which seemed believable, because ebony is very expensive in the U.S.), but now the jig is up as far as I'm concerned.

My other thought with my vanilla European set was that I could take it to tournaments and offer it for play without worry my opponent would object.

I do appreciate the beauty of many expensive sets, but frankly I wouldn't want to play with them OTB. In tournaments I probably would object to a set with intricately carved knights or bicolored pieces like in the Dubrovnik.

Of course, collectors probably wouldn't bring such sets to tournaments.

For wooden tournament pieces, the "German knight" (what you are referring to as "vanilla European set") and the boxwood "Club Special" pieces are the obvious choices. They are both cheap, durable, and widely-used tournament designs.

As I mentioned above, I have a set of the boxwood "Club Special" style pieces (de facto standard design for USCF tournaments), which cost $25 when I bought them in 2000. Recently, Chess Cafe has been selling a "German knight" style set for the amazingly low price of $14 (see this thread - http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chess-cafe-quotinternational-seriesquot-14-wood-set).

Yes, "German knight" is the term I remember when I was choosing my set.

I looked it up at HOS and it was listed under some anodyne name like "Championship Set."

I did notice the Chess Cafe set and was impressed by the price and quality. I went through the ordering process to learn the shipping price: ~$15. Which isn't bad, of course, but does take some of the excitement off "$14!"