Trying to Pick a Good Chess Set

Hello I'm just trying to gather some good opinions on some chess sets and I am stuck between a marble set and a good hard wood set and cant decide what would be the best. I at least want a 4" to 4 1/4" king height and 2 1/4" squares on the board, and 16" to 20" total board size.  Looking for good weighted pieces on top of that. If any one has suggestions or links it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance

I have had great luck with this company - www.houseofchess.com.  They are out of India and make beautiful hardwood chess sets of all kinds and styles.  I prefer wood to marble but that's just me.  I'm about to post a review of several chess sets that I bought from this company.  I also have some extras that I am selling off at a savings from buying new.  Check out my thread.

This may sound retarded to some, but I went to the Lego store in some giant mall in Chicago(forget the name). There you can buy any style and color of lego, in bulk, by the pound. I got the bright idea to make a set of pieces and a board to my liking. When I am done I want to be able to put the pieces and board together with super glue. The pieces also would be able to be attached to the board. I realized this is perhaps chintzy, too involved to build, and too much trouble to use, in the eyes of some. However, I wanted to do it for a collectors item at least. If it was functional, cool, I would use it sometimes.

Otherwise, I recommend wooden pieces too. Glass or crystal break easy. Plastic is well, plastic. Marble is heavy, if you drop it, it is brittle and can chip or break. It also can scar your floor or your foot.

Another idea I had was to make one out of stainless steel. I was going to make the bottom of all of the pieces have a small magnet. It was going to have a buffed finish in the surface, engraved squares, and then anodize/plate the finish for each square and the border. The difficulty there after would be, the pieces would have to be made by hand on a metal lathe. This would be a daunting task. I tried making a set in high school from wood. I can't imagine metal. But buffed stainless or a nice smooth set of anodized pieces ,that were magnetized would be awesome. You could settle for buying another type of pieces and affixing magnets to them. Good luck with your search. A chess your are really fond is priceless.

Hi

The board sizes you mention might need to be revised. A 16 inch board wouldn't accomodate 4 inch chessmen, certainly not 4.5 inch. Even if they were super slim ones it just wouldn't look right.

We have a size guide that might help.

http://www.regencychess.co.uk/size_guide.html

If you are looking for wooden chessmen then remember the wider the base the better the weighting potential. Wide based Staunton pieces always look more elegant than the slimmer ones.

I run the chess club at West Buckland School and can thoroughly recommend Regency Chess - it is run by someone who really cares about the game, and their range of products are carefully chosen for quality.