Recommendations for best wooden pieces for everyday practical play.

I am planning to put a chess playing center soon. Too much wonderful options some are expensive some are cheap. I need only one wooden design for all the boards (will be using chess mats first). I discarded the idea of using plastic pieces. 

When you say center do you mean a place for many people to gather to play chess or do you mean a chess cave at home?

House of Chess might be a good option for you. If you are planning to do a multi set purchase. I would ask for wholesale or bulk pricing. The cheap Polish wooden sets could be another option. Those Tournament N° 6 sets are widely used in tournaments across Eastern European countries.

Do you mean Staunton No. 6? Isn't it too basic and lightweight? 

Planning to start a "small cave" first maybe like 7 sets. Later to  big crowd of 50 sets. 

@giant_of_style Yes the No. 6. It is basic and lightweight. However it is a good value for multi purchase. If your goal is to reach 50 sets. The better value would be a better choice. Public sets will not be treated as well as personally owned sets. That way if pieces end up getting broken or lost. It won't hurt so much in the wallet as a higher cost set for replacing. 

Tournament Staunton (chessgamesshop.com)

I have 7 sets... 1 library size for analysis and 6 tournament size for studying. I guess the answer to your question is who will be using them. If it will only be you then buy what you love. If there will be others in your cave then I would suggest to buy some utilitarian pieces like a Lardy reproduction and/or the No 6 that @KnightsForkCafe mentioned. That way you won't be too mad if your opponent throws a piece at you in the heat of battle.

direct from India....ChessBazaar...

https://www.chessbazaar.com/chess-pieces.html?product_list_order=price

I also have tried to start a chess club in San Francisco here , before Covid, and it didn’t work out at all. Before you rush to buy chess sets or even boards get actual people to sign up and commit somehow. If they’re kids, you have to talk to their parents. If adults then ask how serious they are.

You may find yourself in a situation where you get the wooden sets which while you can find cheaPER are still not cheap.

Just don’t confuse your desire to play chess and organize it with actual reality that perhaps other people aren’t nearly as interested.

I still recommend plastic chess sets. There is nothing wrong with them, particularly if the club may only be starting. Cheaper. Easily replaceable. Doesn’t cost too much if lost or stolen.

OH! I just thought another VERY important thing about why plastic will be better in near future for everybody. Since Covid isn’t going away very soon, you are pretty much obligated to sanitize the chessmen and boards. That means spraying them with either rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, or a store bought mixture like Lysol. All of them are likely to damage the coating and appearance of wooden chess. Peroxide affects plastic a lot, depending on what plastic it is. It can destroy its shine, make black pieces have white spotting etc. Alcohol does something similar but to small degree since it evaporates quickly. Lysol I am not sure.

No point in buying chess pieces made of wood if you may damage it.

ONE more thing. One or two people before me mentioned that Polish (Poland) wood chess pieces are the best option. I strongly agree. There is only one known polish maker of board games like chess and it is Wegiel. They’re sold on Amazon and probably other sites.

Many of the sets and chessmen they sell are, to put it nicely, are bad souvenir style wooden boards and chessmen. Pretty much most of their pieces that are n out Staunton are kind of not for serious play. The wooden boards aren’t that good in those sets. BUT they do have VERY good ones as well. They are tournament chess men no.6, and no.7. The standalone non-folding boards they make are good. I won two. There is one folding chess board with good Staunton pieces that used to be available on Amazon. It was called tournament set 6, or 7. Don’t get anything under 6. Those good boards actually have inlaid wooden squares.

I do not have people to get enlisted to form a club. Business for profit form will be paying taxes; is ok with me. I will be spending capital alone, I want my sets to be much better than the clubs. My ultimate goal--I want a future world champion to play around my chess playing cave. Of course there is nothing to start small. 

Choosing pieces I like (as commented above) is a good idea. I like big cross King. I like a bit fat bishop. I like a bit fat pawns. I do not like big and dragon-looking Knights, and tiny head King's crosses. 

Regarding pandemic--come on it is just a pandemic. 😎♥️

If you want nice wooden sets for a man cave type of personal club then I would suggest contacting Chessbazaar or RoyalChessMall. They both have sub $100 sets that are good quality.  

It would be a nice touch to also get custom vinyl or mousepad boards. A small group of my chess buddies recently had custom mousepad boards done for us with a Logo we made up using online templates and our names on the side and all just for $20 per mousepad board from chesshouse.  American chess equipment has this customizable mousepad chessboards. If you prefer vinyl it will be even cheaper and you will have a lot more vendor options.

I agree but want to include The House of Chess as a good place to contact.