The market seems primed for luxury chess clocks.

What's going on with the nice chess clocks?  I would love a nice, wood digital chess clock, but the Duel Timer seems no longer to be made, the Garde digital clocks seem unavailable anywhere, etc.  The high-end "not wooden" clocks like VisualTek are completely out of stock, and while it's possible to find a few Chronos clocks on the "new" market, the colors available are very limited (I'm out of luck if I want the gunmetal).

I don't see many used for sale on eBay.  There is one Duel Timer (without the brass buttons that I would want) listed for $250, and there's one Garde hybrid digital/analog without box listed for $1000.

I would think there is money to be made if somebody offers a new luxury chess clock.  Clearly people want them, given that none of the old ones are being offered for sale.  And even the nice ones that are supposedly being made like VTek or Chronos have limited (or no) inventory.  What's going on?  Is this related to the chip shortage or something?  I'm ready to throw my money at somebody for a nice chess clock, but there don't seem to be any.

250 bucks for a Duel Timer? I should sell mine! I do like it though. It’s not too good for long tournaments because you can’t see who is on move from the reverse side of the clock.

Even so it was my favorite Digital clock until recently.

If yours is the model with the brass buttons, I might be interested.

Here's the listing. It's the only Duel Timer I see listed for sale anywhere.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/295603140686

@LeChevalier79

Brass faceplate. Brass buttons. Original cardboard box has seen better days.

Let's talk...

I and a friend of mine were throwing the idea of commissioning a couple of "Clock Cases". Our idea would be to send a chronos clock to a local wood worker and have them make a couple of wood cases so that we could transfer the internals over. Anyone who has changed the batteries on their Chronos's knows how minimal the internals of it are.

No, I think the one with brass is more of a toggle switch, a lever so that one side is up while the other is down. It was an early model and doesn’t have all the settings of the later versions. Just before they went out of business circa 2012, Duel Timer came out with a touch sensor version in mahogany it was absolutely beautiful. Sadly the company went out of business before I could purchase one.
Mine is a special one in Ash Wood it has the plastic buttons. I love it up until recently when I bought my DGT 2500, my DT was my easiest of my five digital clocks to set for any time control.
They were all hand made by a man in New England. He had trouble keeping up with demand at times. I’m not sure why he stopped but I heard that he had gotten fatally ill. That’s because I called the company when I noticed that the touch sensor models were out of stock on the HOS website around that time. The person that answered the phone said he wouldn’t be making them anymore. I don’t recall exactly what she said but health reasons were certainly implied.
I really do love mine. I don’t want to part with it. If you can find one of the mahogany touch sensor Duel Timers you will like it better than the brass toggle switch model.

Well that didn't last long! You see what I mean? The market seems hungry for nice chess clocks.

Ok so it's not a Garde digital clock , still pick this up from a goodwill type store here in Amsterdam for 10 euros yesterday no box , just needed a wipe with a damp cloth , for the rest it works as it should , Anyone wants to swap as I already have two Garde chess clocks .

On a related note. Some time ago, I picked up two 1930’s Bakelite analogue clocks - one works perfectly, one requires something to be fixed in one side of the clock. Regardless, I thought it might be good to ‘service’ the clocks… to give them another 100 years but old-fashioned watch and clock makers makers are hard to find. And when I do find one, oh my, is a service not happening! Not yet anyway … or until I win the lottery. One clock maker noted how beautiful myold clocks were, amazing mechanics - apparently! Then to serviced - $495 per face … yep, circa $2000.

Do you remember those old cartoons where the character runs through the wall and leaves a body shaped hole! That was me … I mean ….nice clocks but …no!

I have now found a retired gent who is half a chance for a 1/6th of the price - for the love of the clocks - but he’s got a few health operations and a long waiting list. So probably not.

I’d like a nice digital clock … I find it hard to believe the new DGT 3000 - when it’s upgrade is released - won’t have some stylish housings… wood, brushed metal etc… I can imagine they could sell quite well.

Mate - in this part of the world we have a saying that when someone is saying something unbelievable and unrealistic - they are - “Taking the p!ss” - as far as I’m concerned $2,000 is a total
“p!ss take” … don’t get me wrong - rebuilding a German-made clock requires skill and time - no doubt and actually, I’m all for paying for such skill but here - the investment is simply unrealistic in the context of both the item’s value and what I can afford …. I also find it hard to think there’s not some middle ground - like someone saying: “Lovely clocks, unfortunately a complete service for each mechanism is not realistic but hey - let me spend a couple of hrs on them and at least get the broken one working and just give ‘em a bit of a look and clean.” Or words to that effect … but perhaps I am naive. ‘Tis what is ‘tis - nothing to lose sleep over - if I ever spent that kinda cash it would be on airfares to get over and visit my chess friends in Europe!

Powder, $495 a face when three of the four are working sounds more like "I don't want to touch that" than an actual price.

What does this crowd think the range for a handmade chess clock would be? US$200-400? More? With used analog clocks going for huge sums and not even getting used in tournament play, and new digital clocks being chintzy plastic but still expensive for what you get, @LeChevalier79 called in the first post: there is a great big h*ckin' hole in the market.

A friend and I are *ahem* in career transition (I hate that euphemism) right now, we have complementary skills, and we're both pretty obsessed with this thread. Hardwood case, OLED screen(s) that will switch between digital and analog display, possibly metal accents, y'know, all the stuff discussed above and more. If an Etsy store started selling something like this, a luxury chess clock, there would be demand, certainly, but how much? Pricing's gotta be balanced with sales volume and since we'd be the manufacturer, volume will depend on what we want for quality of life, etc. Oh, and neither of us has ever run a small business.

To be clear, this isn't a plan yet. This is two suddenly unemployed 50-somethings getting enough information to decide if we can actually make a go of this. Seriously, we've been talking about this daily, frequently several times a day. If we could actually pay the bills with something like this, we have the support of our respective households. Are we insane or is this something that would actually have market enough to make a living?

I suspect that the market for "luxury" clocks as such is more collectors than players, whicxh suggests that it will get a positive response here but may not sell so well in the real world. That might also mean that they would sell better at $1000 than at $200. What is the value proposition beyond a wooden case and metal accents?

Yeah, that's a big concern. One of the top questions, actually. We make a cool clock, we'll absolutely sell a few to collectors here. But beyond that...? The chess boom is demonstrably over, has been over for months now. Sales figures compared to this time last year show it unequivocally. And I don't have to tell you or anyone here on CB&E that chess clocks are a very niche product and luxury chess clocks even more so. So to your question about value proposition, you nailed it. That's it. That's the whole thing: it's what you already have one or more of, but this one is nicer -- and everyone knows that marketing strategy is risky as h*ck.

Yes, our daydreaming goes pretty far into the display and interface, making a chess clock with a GUI-based menu and a d-pad instead of the single-button linear menu navigation currently in use, making the clock displays one or two OLED screens that can switch from digital display to old-fashioned analog display with second hands and everything, and which will work as the menu display when you choose your time control, and so on, but like I said above, it's not even a plan yet. Right now we're just blue-skying to see if it's something we can afford to try. And we really, really want to try.

It sounds like you are actually thinking about two different things. One is a better digital chess clock: better usability, a technically better display with some nice display options, and that is potentially a real value proposition. I don't use a chess clock so I am the least qualified person to weigh in on just how much value there is in that proposition, but there is something there. The second thing is a "luxury" chess clock, real wood, metal accents, gold plated whatevers, preferably with a waiting list and an eyewatering price tag to reinforce the mystique, but most chess clocks are utilitarian objects so its a bit difficult to see that working, meaning I am a bit sceptical about that one. The new wooden case chess clocks that I'm aware of are about the equivalent of USD 100 to 150 and are all analogue (so no blitz or complex timing schemes) but they are stuck somewhere in the 1950s.

I really should be careful about rabbit holes... USD79, digital and analogue, and laying on the full luxury/deluxe thing with a trowel. Cute idea though.

https://tempestclock.com/#anchor-2

"The finest materials. No compromises.
Made with premium genuine leather and crafted from a block of solid black walnut. Each Tempest Deluxe is unique, with variations in both leathers and woods. Natural materials patina beautifully with use. It's internally sound dampened and weighted with heavy gauge steel, fully lined with non-slip silicone. As refined as it gets and worthy of its place alongside any of your most valuable sets."

Yeah, we've seen the Tempest. It's a great idea, and man-o-man did they hit their price points. I wish them nothing but success, but they're selling at a discount on Amazon right now, and we're reading that as a sign that they may not be selling as well as they'd hoped. (Plus, looking at the compatibility chart gave me waking nightmares.) The display modalities that they use are very similar to what we want to do, but we're shooting for even simpler.

As far as the shiny-plated luxury thing goes, while we do giggle a bit about how fun it would be to push this into Veblen-good territory, that price range is scary and dangerous, and really isn't what we want to do. So, if a Leap is a pay-as-you-go flip phone, and a DGT3000 LE is a standard smartphone, maybe the kind you get 2-for-1 when you sign up for a plan, we want to be a Samsung or Apple flagship model. We DO NOT want to be a Bellperre or Vertu. Does that analogy make sense?

As far as @MCH818 and @KineticPawn's thoughts about re-casing, that is absolutely something we're thinking about. My bud's SIL does IP law and her reaction at the dinner table was, eyes slowly going wide, "Oh... hm. Yes. This would be an interesting test!" (She's kinda scary.) It's looking like as long as we don't re-brand the guts and are just charging for the service and parts, we'd be in the clear, but that's something we're going to be 100% certain of before we start since neither of us wants or can afford infringement suits. Where it gets complicated is if we modify the guts, like re-case it but add a better/different display, and "modify the guts" has different meanings in different jurisdictions so that's where it apparently gets sticky and starts to rub right up against right-to-repair laws/issues. Fun. And again: price point?

Like I said, this is isn't even quite a plan yet. I mean, we've actually done a lot of work on this, but it's still pie-in-the-sky. We'd discussed it in the past as more of a lark, and then we saw this thread and our interest was re-piqued. To be honest, though, of all the wacky ideas we've had over the years, this is the ONLY one we keep coming back to. We have the skills, we have the space, and we have the support of our families (as long as we're breaking even before the end of this coming school year, and no other employment opportunities pop up). But the question we keep coming back to is "we can do this but should we?"

Oh, and Greg? <heh> It's chess. EVERYTHING'S a rabbit hole, you know that! <ha!> "Chavet? Hm. I wonder what that brand is about..." [down we go]

As a software person, I found the compatibility chart hilarious, but I have a very sick sense of humor. I wouldn't want to be trying to support that in a retail context and I think I does fall short of being a luxury thing, its a luxury phpone stand, which is an idea that doesn't quite gel for me.

The Bellperre phone appears to be close to what you've described, rebadging/recasing other people's phones for people with more dollars than sense. Re-casing appears to be just what they are doing (I've never heard of Apple OEM licensing iOS). I can see why you wouldn't want to go there, but the cost of being Samsung or Apple in that market is prohibitive. Its a great example of Veblenesque conspicuous consumption; EUR33k for a phone (https://www.bellperre.com//product-category/vertu/) is nothing to do with needing a phone.

Indeed, but I think Garde already sell those (although I think that they are remarkably ugly). https://www.chesshouse.com/products/digital-garde-turnier-wood-chess-clock so there is scope for something more aesthetically pleasing, and as I mentioned before, I think that there is scope for something that is more usable than current chess clocks. The question is, would you want to sell a notionally "luxury" and "hand made" object retail given some of the craziness that we've seen around those terms?

"not being so aesthetically pleasing" is so polite about something that ugly. For what a luxury chess clock could look like, (leaving aside whether a "luxury" chess clock is even a thing) I think that there are two ways to go, one is to return to the 19th century, I kind of like the old models which are basically a pair of clocks, side by side, like those made by Tanner with the exposed mechanism, but with some design updates. The problem is that that style of clock is not really meant to be handled roughly and its hard to see how you could make one that has any complex timing scheme (or perhaps more than one), but the idea of some kind of skeleton chess clock appeals hugely to my steampunk side, but I cannot imagine a market for a brass goggles style chess clock. This perhaps? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjQXSeLc4V4 Maybe a bit less over the top than that, maybe somewhere closer to the Tanner design.

To go the other way, closer to the present day, Heuer made some nice rather 1970s-retro analogue chess clocks (except in the 70s they weren't retro yet) whose designs could be built upon. I was wondering whether Dieter Rams ever designed a chess clock, it seems not, but his designs have really beautiful proportions, unfortunately I don't think he ever really did a truly successful digital clock design, I think he needed circles in his designs. The featureless glass block with touch screen rather than switches and a high resolution display, like an overgrown mobile phone suggests itself, and could be pleasing (wrap the display all the way around), but I suspect that thats a bit passe. Voice controlled? eboard integrated to detect the moves to save touching? Honestly, I don't know what to do with the 21st century, but then, I haven't know for a couple of decades now.