The Best Plastic Chess Set Ever: The Windsor Castle Set

Without question the most famous and popular plastic chess set ever made. The set had its glory days back in the 1950s and 60s. These sets could be witnessed in every U.S. tournament during this period. The set was so popular that it was even used in many U.S. Championships during this period. Its pieces graced the hands of many U.S. Grandmasters including Bobby Fischer. Kings measure just over 3.75" in height with pawns at 2 1/8" in height. These sets had one major flaw, they chipped easily. Just about every issue of the wonderful Chess Review magazine from 1950 up to the mid 1960s shows pictures of players using this set. Today, this set is extremely hard to find in any condition and rarely if ever offered on Ebay. I am looking for a black King to complete a set and have some spare pieces to offer in trade.

A great set. I played with it many times at the Western and North Central Opens and other events held in Milwaukee. I'd love to play with one again. What happened to them all?

I beg to differ. Ugly, poorly weighted, badly balanced, and very prone to chipping and breakage. Popular because there was no inexpensive alternative at the time. Sent to death row by the Drueke Players' Choice set and then executed shortly thereafter by the plastic USCF sets. The dead ones were buried in landfills or cremated in incinerators because they were all chipped and broken.

LOL. I'd still love to play on one again, as long as it wasn't dug up from a landfill.

I played a few games with this set & found it to be OK. It is kind of obsolete now with more modern plastic sets on the market.

I cannot comment on the quality of the set as I have never used one but aesthetically speaking,for my taste at least,the set is beautiful, highly pleasing to the eye and   surpasses the modern plastic chess sets I am familiar with.

For me, much of the attraction is nostalgic. I played with that set as a kid, and so did El Pequeno Diablo, Bobby Fischer.

Ifekali, this would be a good project for your 3D printer.

I got a quadruple weight set from Amazon that came with a little pamphlet declaring it "the best chess set" with rules and tips. The pieces are buff and black. It came with the usual green and white vinyl board but I just ordered and brown and buff vinyl board with 2.3 inch squares. The pieces are big and heavy! I really like the way the look, much nicer than my smaller triple wt set. I'm thinking of getting the HOS coffer for the pieces that's on sale. Right now I keep each color in separate cardboard boxes. I'll post a pic when the new board comes in.

Wow! What a beautiful set! I give it a 9.8 out of 10. Indeed best plastic set I have seen.

Mcostan, I also have that quadruple set. It's very nice. I got the "camel" color and black which contrasts better with white squares of vinyl boards and I think it most resembles the Staunton "Cooke" set. Either way. That's the best quality plastic set I've seen so far.
There are also now new nice looking plastic sets with lots of detail. They cost $30 and up and I think biggest US based online chess stores have them. They're called zukertort plastic set, some kind of deluxe set, and some other names.

I realize plastic isn't as collectible as wooden sets, but they still have a place of their own in the chess world and a lot of people use them due to their greater durability when they fall on the floor.

I have questions about the Windsor set.  

Was the design at first a wooden set and then later recreated in plastic?  Or was it a plastic set from the beginning, later recreated in wood (by HOS)?

There have been only a handful of sets that began life as plastic and were later recreated in wood.  The Drueke Player's Choice and the Pacific Games Cavalier come to mind.  Is this also true of the Windsor?

Interesting. I played on many a plastic Windsor in the sixties. The HOS wooden version came decades later. I'm not aware of a wooden antecedent to the plastic version.

LOL! This guy goes all in!

I kick myself for not acquiring one that became available some time ago. Many thanks to House of Staunton and Frank Camaratta, though, for resurrecting this set with their wood reproductions. 

My only wish is that if HOS ever runs another batch of these, that they increase the size of the knights to the proper proportion. Compare those in Mike's pictures of the originals, where the knight is as tall as the rook, to mine of the reproduction, where the knights are decidedly shorter than the rooks. 

Cgrau - I think you are dead on about those knights - unfortunately a tad small on an otherwise excellent set up!

Here is my "ultimate chess pieces" on the new larger brown board!!! I'm so glad I got a larger, brown "board".

The king, from the tip of the cross, is 4.5 inches!! They are quadruple weighted, they *clunk* when you move them!

I think I like using this over my woods sets. Only thing is it's so big it takes up a lot of real estate on my table. I usually also have a small magnet set for sidelines. I painted the gold and silver pieces proper brown and white pieces.

At first I used black and white (it was what I saw first in the garage) but the black was too glossy so I found my brown primer can. I'll post a pic of those nest.

It's very nice, it lays flat and has a nice matte finish. The pices are not overly glossy either, the black has a semigloss luster.

In my opinion the HOS set is not that good. The knight is definitely out of proportion to the other pieces and the rook too seems larger than in the Windsor. As for the choice of red instead of black or brown,personally I don't care for it but of course this is totally subjective..

Here is the small painted magnetic set next to the ultimate chess set pieces.

Here is an overview, you can see how much space it takes up. IT'S LIKE I'M REALLY THERE!  LOL!