Coral Marble Chess Set with Bronze Pieces

Coral Marble Chess Set with Bronze Pieces

This is the big one. A full 19.6" / 50 cm of coral and cream marble, eighteen kilos of it, ringed with brass coordinate markers. Coral is the warmest stone in the range — pinkish where the light falls, rust-veined where it does not — and at this size the pattern in it stops being a detail and becomes the whole surface. You do not put a board like this away between games. There is nowhere to put it.

The army suits the scale: 32 hand-cast bronze pieces, sixteen light against sixteen dark, with crowned kings, robed queens and horse-head knights carrying real modelled detail. On stone they land with a small definite sound that a wooden board never gives you. A luxury chess set this heavy is a commitment to a room, and everyone who sits down at it plays a little slower and thinks a little longer.

What's Included

• Coral and cream marble chess board with brass coordinate markers
• 32 hand-cast bronze chess pieces, 16 light and 16 dark
• Wooden gift box with a viewing window

Specifications

• Board: 19.6 x 19.6" / 50 x 50 cm
• Weight: 18 kg / 39.7 lb
• Materials: natural marble board, cast bronze pieces, brass detailing
• Finish: polished marble with brass coordinate markers
• Entirely handmade

Why You'll Love It

• The largest stone board in the range at 19.6" / 50 cm
• Warm coral veining that exists on no other board
• 32 hand-cast bronze pieces with modelled detail down to the pawns
• 18 kg — immovable, and it sounds like nothing else to play on

Stone Rather Than Wood

At this size the difficulty multiplies. Sixty-four squares have to be cut, ground and polished to sit dead flat against each other, and one chipped corner means starting a square again from a fresh block. That is why large stone boards are rare and why this one weighs what it does. It is also why it will still be perfectly flat in fifty years.

A Gift Worth Giving

A gift on this scale is really a gift to a room — a study, a library, a boardroom that needs one object with weight to it. It arrives in a wooden box with a window, which is the only sensible way to hand over eighteen kilos of marble.