Good Sunday Morning, all!
I see that a relatively modern bronze figural chess set, unique and made with the "lost wax method" (see restoration thread postings 36 and 37 April 2007 for previous discussion of the set) recently sold on ebay for about $450 as Ebay item # 360005281022, "Jungle Carnage Amazing Bronze Chess Set".
(A little side comment here... Gevork6, apparently, another long "lost" entity, was the winning bidder, and another "favorite" friend Pat12201985, who still is accumulating fantastic official feedback despite the apparently questionable description of come of his chess sets, of Poughkeepsie, NY was the seller. Not easy to imagine that with a town name of "Poughkeepsie", there could be such as a great feedback... But I digress, as usual, and I might now be subject to criticism myself for such questionably unkind statements, eh?)
ANYWAY, I have a few comments about this particular chess set.
1.) I have one of these sets (different colors) and am very pleased with it. (But each one of us has our own taste, right? Some folks might not like this one, but I do...) Floyd of Lichess introduced me to a similar set, with different colors, at his oustanding home museum a couple/few years ago. (Thanks again, Floyd!)
2.) Despite the somewhat confusing coloration on these sets (they can come in a relatively wide range of colors), the detail and quality of the design and casting is outstanding. And the weight of each of the chess pieces is impressive.
3.) These sets seem to be fairly difficult to come by. And I do not think there are many out there. It is possible that these are now "made to order". I have seen only a couple on ebay in the many years I have been surfing ebay.
4.) To me, the going (realized) price on the set just "won" (interesting term there, eh?) was on the high side. Directly from the artist in Mexico, the asking price was quite a bit less. Maybe the current market value, given the relative rareness of this set, does indeed reflect the current realistic value. Then again, it seems that all things change with time... Sometimes, values go up and sometimes values go down. As the saying goes, "Beauty... (and value?) ... is in the eye of the beholder".
5.) So, in my own humble opinion, I would recommend that if anyone likes such a finely cast, heavy, metal chess set of original design (the relatively recent plastic or composite materials of a similar design are a poor copy of this set), then go for it in the future!
Have a great day, y'all! John, in a January Thaw-like "State", 😉 Vermont.
