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Staunton Chess Sets

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Staunton Chess Set

Staunton Chess Sets that feature some of the finest Staunton chessmen available in the world, matched with our Spanish, Italian and Polish chess Boards. The Staunton name has become synonymous with the world of chess, and the Regency Staunton Chess Sets have grown to be respected as the finest in the business. There are hundreds of chess set variations that hold the name of perhaps the most iconic and important man to ever play the game, with many of them to be found right here. And, although we honour the traditional shape promoted by Howard Staunton, you will find a number of modern, exciting variants within our collection.

The Legend Of Staunton

The Staunton Chess Set is without doubt the most popular and familiar style of chess set. It's worth noting that the term Staunton chess set refers only to the chess pieces. There is no such thing as a Staunton chess board. It's also a popular misconception to believe that there is or was a company called Staunton who manufactured chess sets. There has never been such a company. The name of the famous chess set comes from a famous chess player who lived in Victorian times. His name was Howard Staunton and for a time was the number one chess player in the world.

Staunton was getting fed up with having to play international games with players using obscure chess sets of various ornate designs. He didn't like that some of the chessmen were hard to distinguish and some pieces were top heavy, easy to topple and not very tactile. When Staunton was made aware of a new design of chessmen, which offered a standard shape for every piece, he instantly put his name to it. From then on he spent a large amount of his life dedicated to promoting the pieces and their validity. Each piece was unique and easy to recognise, but there was no doubt that these pieces were all from the same set. They were stable, easy to place on the board and extraordinary in conventionalism. It meant a game of chess with these chessmen would allow a player’s mind to focus only on the game, rather than fret over placing and identifying unique but confusing pieces.

In honour of the great man we have tried to make the Staunton Chess Set section as simple as possible, offering brilliant Staunton Pieces with equally impressive boards. Every bundle is put together by our expert product team, who guarantee that every piece fits both in size and appearance on their suggested boards.

Staunton chess sets uk

We have the largest stock of Staunton Chess Sets in the UK and always try to add more in the hope that a greater number of customer preferences can be met. However, although the search for new bundles is constant, it can take weeks before a Staunton Chess set is cleared for sale. The process includes a number of factors including price, aesthetics, compatibility and originality. Once accepted into the Staunton Chess Set collection by our Regency product experts, the bundle is put together at our Somerset shop ready for purchase. At this point UK customers can expect to receive a Staunton Chess Set within 24 hours of their order.

We dispatch all of our products immediately on the day of purchase and expect European orders of the Staunton Chess Sets to arrive within 5 days.

Wooden Staunton Chess Sets

The chess sets in this section are most commonly made from wood, although in other categories we do offer marble, metal and even Camel Bone versions of the Staunton Design. We wanted our Staunton Chess Sets to adhere to the times during the 19th century, when Howard Staunton was promoting the new design and his pieces were made of solid wood.

Staunton’s original pieces were actually made of Ebony, a beautiful dark wood that we continue to use today. The same material is used in our Highgrove Ebony and Walnut Chess Set and several others within the Staunton Chess Set category.

Rosewood can also be found in this category, offering a mellow redness to more than 10 hand carved pieces, including the ones we place on the Atlantic Rosewood Set.

A harder wood that we use is Sheesham, particularly for our cheaper pieces that do not require the exuberance as others, but must still be aesthetically pleasing as well as hard wearing. The French Knight Sheesham and Mahogany Chess Set features our popular Sheesham French Knight chessmen.

Most Popular Staunton Chess Sets

So with so many options available, which staunton chess set are the best sellers in the Regency Collection? Well, certainly there are Regency favourites, like the lively Atlantic Gloss Black and Natural Chess Set.

However, it is the indulgent Rosewood of our Sicilian Pieces set upon an understated 19.7 inch Walnut and Maple board that makes Chess players tick. The Sicilian Rosewood and Walnut Chess Set has a discreet elegance that, perhaps, attracts players searching for the same unobtrusive set as Staunton himself.

Those looking for a all three components of a chess set for less than £100, which includes pieces, a board and a box, seem to find themselves land on the Fierce Knight Black Tournament Chess Set. The ebonized Fierce Knight Pieces are matched with a 15.75 Walnut and Maple board that is simply a smaller version than the one coupled with the aforementioned Sicilian Pieces.

And, like those Sicilian Chessmen, the other most popular Staunton Chess Set is wonderfully elegant, which is a relief considering its called the Elegant Palisander Chess Set. A 17.75 Black Anegre and Palisander Deluxe Chess Board is the base of this top selling bundle, with a set of 3 inch Elegant Series Ebony Staunton Chess Pieces set on top.

FAQs

Is there a company called Staunton who make chess sets?

This is a very common assumption. The short answer is no, there never was or has been a company called Staunton who manufactured chess sets. The word Staunton comes from Howard Staunton who was the world’s top chess player in the mid 1800s. When he saw the new design, he immediately fell in love with it and endorsed it immediately. So, the sets became known as ‘Staunton Chess Sets’

Can I buy a Genuine Staunton chess set?

The only way to buy a truly genuine Staunton chess set would be to buy a set from the 1800s. In more recent times the original business that created and marketed the set have stopped making them, instead they import sets from other manufacturers. It might surprise you to learn that the original company who made them in the 1800s, Jaques of London, still exist today but have become an importer of cheap Chinese toys instead of a manufacturer of fine chess sets.

Today the Staunton designed chessmen are made by a variety of companies and hundreds of variations of the design have been created, in some cases to make them more decorative and fancier. We sell a vast range of these fine chessmen including precise reproductions of the original Victorian sets and some more modern versions of the design

Who was Howard Staunton?

Howard Staunton was a world-famous chess champion who was active around the mid 1800s. He was a multi-talented man whose life wasn’t conventional. He wrote a handful of books, became an educationalist with very progressive and modern ideas about learning behaviours. It’s said that he married a woman who already had eight children and that in his early years he was mostly inactive while he squandered his family’s inheritance. Either way he's become one of the world’s most famous chess players and one of the Victorian era’s significant people.

Weighted Tournament Chess Set

Almost all of our chess sets are weighted, and our tournament chess sets all have substantial balanced weighting in the pieces to ensure they feel right on the board. You’ll generally find that high level tournaments using wooden chess sets will always use weighted pieces. We have weighted chess sets in a range of sizes and price points. All of the chess sets in this category are weighted. The process of weighting wooden chessmen involves inserting a steel, iron or lead weight into the base of the pieces, ensuring it is surrounded by something soft to enable natural expansion of the wood. The weight needs to be the right size for the piece to ensure perfect balance, something you can only appreciate when you pick the piece up in your hand.

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