House of Martin Chess Set

You will recall my passion for different types of chess sets and today I bring you another one.  This is made by House of Martin and manufactured in England.  This one was sent to me by my friend Aslam of the UK.

The plastic set is designed as Staunton and is nice to use for analysis.  The King is set at 2.5 inches (6.2 cm) tall and the base is 1 inch (2.5 cm).  The set has a nice feel to it and is not like the usual Chinese made chess sets which we normally use for tournaments.

All pieces have felt underneath

The container is nice and all the pieces fit in.  There is no soft covering on the inside of the container and there is no lock so one needs to use a rubber band to keep in closed.

Proudly made in England

All fits nicely into the sections

I am pretty sure that House of Martin also made chess boards for their chess sets.  Unfortunately this set did not come with one and hence I have used a board made by another UK company K&C Ltd.  This board with a small wooden set came from www.ebay.com.

The beauty about these sets is that it is nice to use when you are going through a game of chess.  Not really suitable to playing against an opponent.

An interesting observation is that in the past most of these sets which were designed for the kids came with a hard board rather than a roll up board.  This allows you as kid to place the chess on your wobbly class desk and play.  You cannot really use a roll up board on a class desk.  To make matters even worse is that most chess sets come with the standard 3.75 inch King and 20x20 inch plastic roll up chess board.  This is way too big for a class desk.  

Blast from the past. K&C with their famous boards

I was lucky in High School as we used to play in the Physics Laboratory and hence there was enough space for the sets.  In those days it was either the small Spears or K&C sets that we used to use.

The other set from House of Martin is a travel set and I have enclosed some photos to show what it looks like.  The dimensions are 6 inches x 4 inches x 1 inch high.  I keep one in my car and find it very useful when I have to wait for kids while they attend their swimming classes, piano classes etc.

Dimensions are 6 x 4 x 1 inches

There is space on both sides for captured pieces

The pieces have pegs and they fit nicely into the holes

The set is compact and all you need is a pillow to put on the steering wheel, have a bulldog clip to hold the book open and you can study while you wait.

This type of set is also very useful if you are travelling by bus or plane and even more useful if you are stuck in a “mother of all traffic jams”!  See my story on mother of all traffic jams on http://www.kenyachessmasala.com/2015/11/recap-of-2015-mombasa-open.html

The only way you can get these type of sets is to buy them from ebay as I am not even sure if House of Martin is still operational in the UK.  On ebay you will find wooden sets made by House of Martin which I am sure would be very well made.

I would recommend both these sets to any chess player.  I am not being paid by House of Martin to say nice things about their sets so you can trust me.