The object that I've possessed throughout my life and criss-crossed the country with, is a small electronic chess set. It works on 2 double A electric batteries and has 8 different skill levels. Naturally after forty three years the white pieces are a tad rusty and I've misplaced a knight along the way, but mostly and a change of batteries now and again it has been with me since I was 15 years of age.

My chess set has inhabited in New York, Alaska, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It weathered marriage and survived children. It waits patiently in a cupboard for me to take time for a game. Naturally I've never done it justness, only ever making to skill stage five and a lot of the time being adequate at level three or four, but it has been a steady friend. It's difficult to think a chess set could be made in 1965 and keep going until now, but it has and it's still here primed to play!

There are so many extraordinary and gorgeous chess sets in the united states, they can be a great thing to amass or to give as gifts. I have seen gorgeous pieces in the fairs of Turkey and Israel and in the markets of India. They seem to be a world-wide happening. These fairly priced sets made from wood, marble or other local materials can be lovely conversation chessmen or decorative components, even if one doesn't play chess.

To Boot, one can discover chess pieces that are designed after a mixture of themes, from civil war chess sets symbolizing the North and South to those made about books and films, such as Lord of the Rings.

An historic, better that vintage, chess set on the bottom shelf of the laundry room in my parents' home in a well-worn red box is nothing treasure seekers would submit to Antiques Roadshow for an estimate. Nonetheless, this set of red and black chess pieces with the strong feel of even the pawns, is priceless.

In my history are stories of childhood, an aunt who died after I left grammar school, and hours discovering the game and competing with my younger sister. Rather of growing into chess, I outgrew it, more things going on and less patience as I went toward teenage years. This chess set conjures precious remembering beyond the battered board and well worn pawns.

I remember when I was a youth that my dad would only on holidays pull out the household chess set. I was perpetually so charged to view the hinged wooden box with the black and tan two inch checkers on it. This wasn't your garden variety chess set, this was a completely wooden hand crafted set.

I can recall each and every piece with wonderful detail, the knights, so demanding and strong. The rooks painstakingly straight cylinders with the minutest details rendering several hours of work. I still own that chess set, it is lacking a couple of chess men now, but I still can't wait to show it to my boys when they are senior enough to appreciate it.