Exeter Chess Club

Simpsons Chess Set

Braille chess set with raised dark squares

Sheep Chess Set 1

Twin Portland Chess Sets

Children's Japanese Chess Set

Chocolate Chess Set
Many thanks, Taylor and Codie!

Chess Set for Makruk (Thai or Cambodian Chess)

Chinese Chess Set (2D) donated to Exeter Chess Club by Franco Kuan.

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - Queen

Glass Chess Set

[Kings Play Chess On Flat Glass Surfaces (KPCOFGS) is a mnemonic for remembering the classification of living organisms.]

Variant chess sets

A jar of bicoloured pieces, a stack of sticky labels and a colour printer, and you can reproduce (or invent) any variant chess game you like. Featured are: Courier Chess, Chinese Chess, Take the Brain and Mad Mate (aka one-board exchange chess).

Dolls House Chess Set (magnetic)

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - Bishop

Star Wars Chess Set

Small messenger-bag-sized plastic chess set and board

Bauhaus-inspired Chess Set: wooden shapes, glue and spray paint.
The design of each piece symbolises its movement.
H/T http://www.woodcraftshapes.com/wood-craft-shapes-shop.php

Chinese Theme Chess Set

Three Way Chess Set

Lighter Chess Set

Combination Draughts and Chess Set - crystallate? A design widely circulated to armed forces in WW2.

Standard Staunton Chess Set in plastic

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - Pawn

Wooden Travel Chess Set with drawers

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - Rook

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - 2

Sheep Chess Set 2

Marble Chess Set on an inlaid Granite Board

Barleycorn chess set

Plastic Travel Chess Set

South American Chess Set (rear)

Mongolian Chess Set (Shatar) on Felt board
Thanks Harry!

Two Isle of Lewis Chess Sets

The most famous set of all? I have two versions, the larger is quite authentic but whoever designed the smaller decided that the pawns were two boring and substituted a piece based on the 'berserker' shield-biting Rook, and used for the Rooks a tower based on York Minster. Chacun a son gout.

Capablanca Chess Set

To be played on a 10x10 board (rather than the infinite one pictured)New pieces include Marshall(!) (R+N)&Chancellor (N+B)

It joins the umpteen other unplayed 10x10 variants invented over the centuries, as listed (and unlisted) by Pritchard and the Variant Chess Pages, including Jester Chess, Decimal Chess, Grand Chess, Shatranj
at-Tâmma, Centennial Chess, Super Chess, Supremo Chess, Nahbi Chess...

Plaster Cast Chess Set, made by my cousin Tim

In the style of a set by Peter Ganine, I think this one by Duncan Bisque

Wooden Pokerwork Chess Set (former Yugoslavia)

Hexagonal Chess Set

This is Glinski's Hexagonal Chess, which I think I first found out about in the 1970s through CHESS magazine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagonal_chess#Gli.C5.84ski.27s_hexagonal_...
http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/hexagonal.html

The ChessVariants site explains how you can make your own sets for this and other chess games.

Babushka Chess Set

Medium Wooden Plug-in Chess Set

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - 1

Large magnetic chess set

Turned ox-bone chess set in natural colour and cochineal on folding wooden board

Russian chess set in 'poppet'/chochloma style

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - King

Chaturanga Chess Set - the parent of them all

Plug-in Travel Chess Set

Fantasy Chess Set

Tiny Chess Set

St George Chess Set in turned wood

3D Chinese Chess Set (detail)

Indian Wood Chess Set on Musical Chess Table

3D Chinese Chess Set

Bone 'Barleycorn' Chess Set

The replacement King is not a match, but it is a fit, easily ignored in play.

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/threekings

The box is an old entomological specimen case, unexpectedly free after an attack of museum beetle. It is an irony that the greatest threat to the survival of a collection of insects is another insect.

Regency style chess set

Self-explanatory Chess Set 2

Inspired by the various efforts made to explain Japanese Chess (Shogi) by marking the pieces, I had a go at making a chess set along similar lines. Needs testing on a youngster, but I'm quite pleased with it.

Large Resin Chess Set on Wood inlay board

South American Chess Set

Handpainted Wooden Children's Chess Set - Knight

Modern Chess Set in horn

Marvel Comic Chess Set

Soapstone Chess Set

'Spanish Regency' Chess Set - it's the style that is called Spanish, rather than the set.

Lotus Bud Chess Set
A modern set, but appealed to me as the nested/tiered crowns reminded me of the Selenus style.

Courier Chess Set

This is the game most often known these days from van Leyden's painting (http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/courier/painting.html); there are both the old-style elephantine Bishops that hop two squares diagonally (like the al-fil in shatranj), and a modern Bishop called a Courier (Läufer, still the German name for a Bishop). The Queen is the old-school short-stepping ferz, and there are two extra pieces: a Mann (henchman), who moves like a King and is one of the most powerful pieces on the board (being able to mate with support), and a Schleich (sneak), who moves like a wazir, one square along a rank or file. The game was famously played for centuries in Ströbeck, but eventually died out there.

There were four obligatory moves to be made at the start: to advance the Rook's pawns and Queen's Pawn two squares each, then make a 'joy-leap' (Freudensprung) of the Queen forward two squares (not a move allowed on any other turn). I'd like to see Nunn's Courier Chess Openings!