Luxury Chess Boards

Our take

The word luxury does almost no work on a chess board. What actually separates a board you display from one you put away is thickness and timber, and both are published on every listing here. The boards on this page run from 12mm to 45mm thick. That is close to a fourfold difference in the same collection, and you can feel it the moment you put a weighted king down.

The second thing is construction, and there are two traditions on this page. The Spanish boards, Ferrer's range included, are veneer laid over a stable core at 12mm to 13mm. That is not a compromise, it is the method: it is how you get a dead flat surface in a burl or an olive, timbers that will move on you worked any other way. The rest are the other tradition, cut far thicker, 22mm through to 45mm.

If the board is going to live on a sideboard or a study desk between games, buy for timber and finish and worry less about the millimetres. If it is going to be played on hard and often, the thicker ebony boards are the ones that stay flat.

Kurt Ebrado, Customer Experience & Resident Player, Sterling Chess

What actually makes a board worth displaying

Three published figures do most of the work, and all three are on every product page.

• Thickness. From 12mm on the Spanish veneer boards up to 45mm on the thickest ebony board in the range. A thick board reads as furniture from across a room; a thin one reads as equipment.
• Timber. Genuine ebony, Indian rosewood, sheesham, walnut, mahogany, wenge, olive and figured burls. The dark side is where the money goes, and ebony is the deepest and most uniform of them.
• The border. Some boards carry a wide framed border, some a narrow one, and some are deliberately borderless. It changes the look far more than most buyers expect.

Weight is published on most of these listings too, from just under 2kg to around 5.5kg, and it tracks thickness closely enough to be a useful sanity check.

How these boards are built

The Spanish boards are veneer over a stable core, and that includes the entire Ferrer range along with four boards in our own. They sit at 12mm to 13mm. Working a figured timber this way is what keeps the surface flat: red ash burl, black olive and anigre are chosen for figure precisely because they are lively, and laying them over a core is how that figure reaches you without a twist in it. The tolerance the veneer is laid to is what separates a serious board from an ordinary one, and it is where Ferrer put the money.

The thick-stock boards work the opposite way. Ebony and Indian rosewood take that treatment well, and the results run from 22mm up to 45mm and from 3kg to around 5.5kg. A board at that weight stays where you put it, holds a level surface under a heavy set, and is the one to buy if the board is going to be played on hard rather than looked at.

The timbers, and what each one gives you

• Ebony. The deepest black available in a natural timber and the most uniform. The ebony boards here are also the thickest and heaviest, which is not a coincidence.
• Indian rosewood and sheesham. Warm red-brown through to dark chocolate, with visible grain. These are the same botanical family and sheesham is often sold as golden rosewood.
• Walnut and mahogany. Mid-brown with a softer contrast against the light squares. Easier on the eye over a long game than a hard black and white.
• Wenge. Near black with a strong open grain, so it reads dark from a distance and textured up close.
• Olive and figured burls. Black olive, red ash burl and anigre. These are the decorative end, chosen for figure rather than contrast.

Boards worth knowing in this range

• Luxury 53cm Chess Board with 55mm Squares: 45mm thick and around 5,390g, with genuine ebony and boxwood squares in an ebonised frame. The thickest board on this page.
• Luxury Sheesham & Maple 53cm Chess Board: 40mm thick with a sheesham border about 4.2cm wide, in 56mm squares. The widest border in the range.
• Ebony & Maple Sheesham Border 58cm Chess Board: 60mm squares on a 58.4cm board at around 5.5kg, the heaviest here. Built for the largest tournament pieces.
• Ebony & Maple Sheesham Frame 55cm Chess Board: 30mm thick, 5,340g, 60mm squares. The middle ground between the thick ebony boards and the thinner bordered ones.
• Ebony & Maple 53cm Chess Board: no border at all, described on its own page as a plain board. Ebony squares edge to edge, which suits a modern room.
• Minimalist Borderless Veneer 48cm Chess Board: borderless by design, 13mm, with 60mm squares on a 48cm board. Large squares on a compact board, which is unusual and reads very cleanly.
• Deluxe Hi-Gloss 58cm Chess Board: rosewood and maple under a high gloss finish. The most reflective surface in the range, and the one that photographs best.
• Ferrer Wenge Deluxe Barcelona Chess Board: wengue and sycamore, 12mm, made in Spain. Ferrer's own documentation calls the Barcelona Deluxe their highest board specification.
• Ferrer Black Olive Deluxe Chess Board: olive wood light squares against black tulipie, in a matte finish. The most distinctive timber pairing we stock.
• Ferrer Queens Gambit Official Chess Board: black tulipie with natural wood veneer light squares, in 40mm or 50mm squares.

Every board on this page is also listed in our broader wood chess boards range, which covers the full 47 boards including the standard and folding formats. This page is the upper end of it.

Match the board to the pieces you own

Square sizes here run 40mm, 45mm, 50mm, 55mm, 56mm and 60mm, on boards from 40cm to 60cm across. The square size decides which pieces fit, so measure the base of your king before anything else and check it against the recommended range each board publishes.

If you are buying pieces at the same time, our chess pieces range lists base diameters on every listing, and the luxury chess sets range pairs boards and pieces that are already matched.

Frequently asked questions

Are these boards solid wood or veneer?

Both traditions are here. The Spanish-made boards, Ferrer's whole range included, are veneer over a stable core at 12mm to 13mm, which is the standard method for figured timbers and the reason they stay flat. The thick-stock boards are cut much heavier, 22mm to 45mm and up to 5.5kg. Thickness and timbers are listed on every product page, and if you want a board matched to a set you already own, tell us what you have and we will point you at the right one.

What makes one chess board more expensive than another?

Timber and thickness, mostly. Ebony costs more than sheesham and always will. A 45mm board uses far more material than a 13mm one. After that it is the precision of the inlay and the finish, which is where the Spanish boards earn their price despite being thin.

Can a chess board be used as decor rather than for playing?

Plenty are. The thicker bordered boards work on a sideboard or a console table without pieces on them at all, and the borderless boards suit a wall-adjacent shelf. If the board is mainly decorative, buy for timber and finish rather than square size, because piece fit stops mattering.

Which board suits the largest pieces?

The 60mm square boards, of which there are several here, including the 58cm ebony and sheesham border board and the 55cm ebony and maple sheesham frame board.

Do any of these come with pieces?

No. Every product on this page is the board on its own. Pieces are sold separately, or as a matched set in our luxury chess sets range.

How should a luxury chess board be cared for?

Keep it out of direct sunlight and away from heating vents, which is what dries timber and lifts veneer. Wipe with a soft dry cloth and avoid chemical cleaners on both the timber and any lacquered surface.

What is the difference between these and the Ferrer standard boards?

Ferrer publish their own tiers. The Deluxe and Barcelona Deluxe boards on this page sit above their standard range on timber selection and veneer tolerance. The standard Ferrer boards are listed in our Ferrer Chess collection.

Backed by Sterling Chess

A board at this end of the range is bought once and kept, so the specification matters more than the adjective on the label. We handle these boards before they go into the catalogue, and every figure on this page is the maker's own rather than a rounded estimate.

All Australian stock with local support and 100 day free returns. If you are still deciding between formats, the full chess boards range covers every board we carry, and tell us the pieces you are matching and we will tell you which of these actually fits them.