House of Chess - Rio Staunton Biggie Knight Rosewood 4" King Height - Chess Set - 21" Folding Chess Board with Algebraic Notation - 2 Extra Queens

Update:I'm happy to say that the manufacturer stands behind their products. They sent me a replacement set, that while not perfect, is much better than the original set I received.The color of the set is much better, and more like the product photo. None of the pieces were broken, or covered with glue that couldn't be removed. However, there were still some flaws.I added 4 new photos showing the set, and the remaining flaws on the new set. The board itself is much better than the first board, but the squares still lack symmetry in many spots. Some squares are actually smaller than others, and one or two look like they aren't square with the other squares, but not so far off that it drives me crazy.The rosewood bishops look great, but for some reason the boxwood bishops didn't get the same attention to detail in the mouth. It is difficult to photograph without a macro lens, but you can basically see what I'm talking about in the side-by-side photo of the bishops.The knights had two minor issues that bothered me. On one side of each of the knights you can see a cut line left over from the higher cuts; and the hole was drilled out poorly and could have been sanded or done with a brad point tip to avoid that roughness.All in all, it's much better. With a little more quality control, this would be a great value.Original Review:I really wanted to love this chess set. I had high hopes, and for nearly $300 for a set coming from India, it should have blown me away. Unfortunately, that was not the case.The pieces look nice enough, and are well weighted, BUT many of them were damaged, broken or covered in glue when they arrived.The KNIGHT, the main reason I bought this set, arrived broken and detached from the base. 6 or 7 of the pawns had glue on them that wouldn't rub off, while a couple others that had glue that did come off.It was hard to photograph, but one of the queens has a small scratch and dent on it, as does one of the bishops which was easier to photograph. It looks like there's also some extra router burn in all the bishops inside the gap. If it was intended as part of the design, it looks like they only did about half of the carving, but it looks like a mistake to me. See the photo and judge for yourself.The rosewood looks nice, but they clearly didn't use any wood sealer on it. Much of the finish is rough, and uneven as you can see in the photo of the king. In the photo of the queen you can see the lines from the lathe or CNC that they used to make the pieces. The set really could have used more finish sanding.The kicker is the board. They charge $150 for the board in the set (the pieces are $125 if you buy them separately). The finish on the board is okay at best, but not great. It's a semi-gloss showing plenty of imperfections as you can probably see in the photos. I can overlook that. The real issues begin with the fact that many of the squares are misaligned or poorly cut. One of the edge strips was measured wrong, and they used a filler piece to complete the edge rather than measuring another piece correctly. A board like this from House of Staunton would be sold for $39.99 in the clearance section under the imperfect boards. For $150 from another brand, I better get perfection. I did not. Nothing even close to perfection. Mediocrity would have been an improvement. Oh yeah, on top of that, the inside of the board has glue strung all over the place. You can see it in the last photo. The whole thing smells strongly of glue and chemicals.Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with this purchase and I'm hoping the manufacturer can do something to rectify the situation or I will be returning this set and avoiding the brand.EDIT: I also noticed that the board does not match the pieces. The board I received was golden rosewood, and not dark rosewood like the pieces. The set pictured on Amazon has the board rosewood matching the pieces, my set did not match at all. Compare my photos to the product photo and you can see it's a significant difference.

Wow! This is a very beautiful set the rose wood is solid and finished to wonderful shine, the folding board is solid rose wood, if You are looking for a real nice chess set, this is it, it came double packed very protected, arrived within 5 days from India, I will be buying a smaller travel set next, and it will be a house of chess set. Thank you, Steve Weaver

Awesome beautiful set

Got delivered three days early, fantastic set. Just like it says, if you love chess, you need to own this set.