Featured Chess Sets 2025

You’ll have gigabytes of fun with this chess set! Watch your electrical accessory pieces move across the laser-engraved squares on this motherboard. Don’t let your opponent RAM your circuits off the board! This chess set is one of many in our World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries collection that challenge the traditional aesthetics of chess sets. Homemade chess sets like this one allow chess enthusiasts to combine two of their passions and explore their creativity!

Artists have used unconventional materials to create chess sets for centuries. This handcrafted chess set is made from leather and features simplified versions of familiar chess pieces. The kings, queens, and bishops resemble the iconic headgear of their namesake pieces. The artist used wooden dowels to add weight to the chess pieces and ensure that they maintain their forms.

August’s Featured Chess Set is part of the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries (WCHOF). Since its creation in 1986, the WCHOF has endeavored to highlight the history and cultural significance of the game of chess. The WCHOF’s collection is diverse and includes sets once owned by legendary players, mass-produced sets with lively pop culture themes, antique ivory sets, travel sets, and chess computers. Through these artifacts, the WCHOF illustrates how chess has evolved through its over 1,500-year history.

Viade Products, Inc.
Teeth Chess Set
2009
King size: 1 1/2 in.
Board: 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 in.
Plastic
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries, gift of Dr. Carolina Blanco

Chessmile
Chessmile Brackets, Dental Model, and Promotional Items
2009
Plastic, metal, paper, and nylon
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries, gift of Dr. Carolina Blanco

Dr. Carolina Blanco, an orthodontist and Woman International Master in chess, sees similarities between the precision, strategic thinking, and attention to detail needed in both playing chess and dentistry. She states, “In chess, strategy is all about planning several moves ahead, understanding patterns, and positioning your pieces for both defense and offense. In dentistry, strategy is key in diagnosing, treating, and maintaining oral health.” Blanco created Chessmile, a line of chess-themed brackets, which associates the 32 teeth in a permanent human dentition (arrangement of teeth) with the 32 pieces in a chess set. If you look carefully at the brackets, you can see that they are modeled upon the symbols for chess pieces. They are on view alongside a tooth-themed chess set produced by another company that Blanco donated to the WCHOF.

Terence Babb began creating this mystical chess set as a gift for his sister’s fairy garden. He started by making the fairy queen and mushroom pawns, but then he had so much fun that he continued to develop an entire chess set of characters. Babb found inspiration for the forms of the pieces in stone garden sculptures. He and his wife have a family business selling their 3d-printed creations—one of their cat-themed chess sets is in the World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries’ current exhibition Paws and Pawns: Exploring Animal Chess Sets.

Artist Lorrie Matthews, who spent time with family by the rivers, lakes, and forests of the American Northwest as a child, celebrates the outdoors through her artwork. In this hand-sculpted and painted chess set, Mother Nature faces off against a woodcutter. The mountains in Idaho and the flora and fauna found there, including the bald eagle and golden eagle perched atop the kings, adorn the set. Clever foxes and fierce bears appear as the knights.

Once Upon a Book Club
Love and Chess Chess Set / Mallory Greenleaf’s Chess Set
2024
King size: 2 ½ in.
Board: 11 x 11 in.
Material: Wood and cardboard
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Fall in love with this chess set inspired by Ali Hazelwood’s debut YA novel, Check & Mate (2023). The set’s title refers to the book’s main character, Mallory Greenleaf. Greenleaf is a former chess prodigy who has left the chess world behind to help her family. She gets thrust back into it when she unwittingly beats one of the most famous chess prodigies, Nolan Sawyer, in a charity meet.

As Nolan and Mallory help each other rekindle their love of chess, they cannot fight their feelings for each other. The board’s border has the same gradient design scheme as the book’s cover. Ali Hazelwood is a romance author most known for her main characters being women in STEM fields.

Maker unknown
Roosters and Hens Chess Set
c. late 20th century
King size: 3 ⅜ in.
Material: Resin
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Chickens perch atop their coops, ready to see which side will rule the roost in this chess set. Each detailed piece represents different breeds of chickens, including ones with unique appearances like black silkies that are the rooks on the black side.

January’s Featured Chess Set is part of the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF). Since its creation in 1986, the WCHOF has endeavored to highlight the history and cultural significance of the game of chess. The WCHOF’s collection is diverse and includes sets once owned by legendary players, mass-produced sets with lively pop culture themes, antique ivory sets, travel sets, as well as chess computers.

Through these artifacts, the WCHOF illustrates how chess has evolved through its over 1500-year history. This set is part of the museum’s permanent collection.