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Josef Hartwig designed this in 1924 while he ran the sculpture workshop at the Bauhaus, and the idea behind it is that a piece should look like the move it makes. The rook and pawn move in straight lines, so they are cubes. The bishop moves diagonally, so it carries a diagonal. The knight is an L. The queen is a cylinder with a sphere on top, free to go anywhere.
What that produces is a set with no faces, no crowns and no mitres, in which the tallest piece is the queen at 50mm rather than the king at 49mm. It is the most uncompromising object in our chess sets collection and it is not trying to be a Staunton.
Here it comes paired with a 48cm ebony and boxwood board on 50mm squares, which is generous for pieces this small and entirely deliberate.
Almost every assumption a Staunton set makes is reversed here. There is no height ladder, no royal iconography and no felt. The queen outranks the king in height. The bishop, knight and rook all stand at exactly 29mm and are told apart purely by shape.
That makes it slower to read at first. You cannot scan the back rank for silhouettes the way you can with a Staunton, so early games involve genuinely looking at each piece. Most people report that resolving after a handful of games, at which point the logic of the design starts doing the work instead.
It is a design object that happens to be playable rather than a tournament set with unusual styling. Anyone wanting a set for serious play should look at our Staunton chess pieces instead.
Hartwig specified plain wooden solids with no metal in them and no felt underneath, and the reproduction holds to that. The pieces sit directly on the board on bare timber.
In practice they are light and they slide rather than settle. There is none of the thud that a weighted Staunton gives you. Adding weights would be an easy improvement to the playing feel and it would also be a departure from the design, and on a piece of Bauhaus design history the design wins.
The rule of thumb for a Staunton is that the king base should be around three quarters of the square. Here the king base is 29mm on a 50mm square, which is barely half, and the board looks enormous relative to the pieces.
That is the point. The forms are abstract and they need clear air around them to read as distinct solids rather than as a cluster of small blocks. Crowd them onto 35mm squares and the set becomes visually illegible, which defeats the entire design.
Nearly every set we sell ships with two spare queens for pawn promotion. This one does not, and that is faithful to the original rather than an omission.
In play it means promoting to a second queen requires an inverted rook or a piece borrowed from a captured side, which is how the game was handled before spare queens became standard. If that bothers you, the pattern is also available as pieces without a board and the same constraint applies there. Boards to suit are in our chess boards collection.
Buy this because you want the Hartwig design in the house, not because you want a set to play a league season with. It is unweighted, unfelted, hard to read at speed, and short two queens, and every one of those is a faithful reproduction decision rather than a cost saving. The board pairing is the part that surprises people: 50mm squares under a 29mm base looks absurd on paper and is exactly right in the room, because these forms need air to be legible. The one practical warning is the piece height. At 49mm this is a small set, and anyone expecting tournament presence on the table should look elsewhere.
- Blake Sterling, CEO & Founder, Sterling Chess
Yes. A 48cm board in ebony and boxwood with 50mm squares, 22mm thick, weighing around 3,000g.
The 1924 design did not include spare queens and the reproduction is faithful to it. Promotion is handled with an inverted rook or a captured piece, as it was at the time.
No. They are unweighted and have no felt on the base, exactly as Josef Hartwig specified. They are light in the hand and slide rather than settle.
The king is the cube with the diagonal cross on top at 49mm. The queen is the cylinder with a sphere and is fractionally taller at 50mm, which catches most people out at first.
Yes. The same pattern is on the site as pieces without a board.
|
Spec |
Detail |
|
King height |
49mm (1.92 inch) |
|
King base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Queen height |
50mm (1.96 inch) |
|
Queen base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Bishop height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Knight height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Rook height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Officer base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch), bishop, knight and rook |
|
Pawn height |
19mm (0.74 inch) |
|
Pawn base diameter |
19mm (0.74 inch) |
|
Dark pieces |
Ebonised boxwood |
|
Light pieces |
Natural boxwood |
|
Weighting |
Unweighted, no felt, as the original design specified |
|
Piece count |
32, with no spare queens |
|
Chess pieces weight |
410g approximate |
|
Board size |
48cm x 48cm (19 inch) |
|
Board square size |
50mm (2 inch) |
|
Board thickness |
22mm |
|
Board timbers |
Ebony and boxwood |
|
Board weight |
3,000g approximate |
|
Total parcel weight |
3,410g approximate |
|
Designer |
Josef Hartwig, Bauhaus, 1924 |
|
Origin |
Hand made in India |
32 chess pieces
One 48cm ebony and boxwood chess board with 50mm squares
All products sold by Sterling Chess are backed by a 12 month limited manufacturer warranty. This covers manufacturing defects and cracking, and ensures every product is 100% genuine. If you need assistance, our team is only a call or email away.
Is shipping really free?
Yes — we offer free standard shipping on all orders across Australia, with no minimum spend. The price you see at checkout is the price you pay.
Are there any exceptions to free shipping?
No exceptions. Every order ships free, regardless of size, weight, or order value.
How long will my order take to arrive?
Orders are typically dispatched within 1–2 business days, with delivery times depending on your location. You'll receive tracking details by email once your order is on its way.
Do you ship to all areas of Australia?
Yes, we deliver Australia-wide, including regional and remote areas — all at no shipping cost to you.
Can I track my order?
Absolutely. As soon as your order ships, we'll email you a tracking number so you can follow its journey to your door.
What if I need my order quickly?
Get in touch before ordering and we'll do our best to help. Standard shipping is free, and we'll advise on the fastest available option for your area. To contact us, simply email us at support@sterlingchess.com.au, call (03) 7037 0931 or open the live chat.
Changed your mind? You can return unused, unopened items within 100 days of your order date, provided they’re in original packaging and resaleable condition. Sterling Chess will cover the cost of shipping return items under our 100-day free returns policy.
All Sterling Chess products are backed by Australian Consumer Law and include a minimum 12-month Australian warranty. If there’s an issue with your product, our team is here to help and will work to make it right.
Click here to view our full returns policy.
If you're shopping for a new chess set, you're in the right place—and here's why.
1. We know chess inside and out
At Sterling Chess, we're not just another online store. We’re chess lovers, players, collectors, and game night fanatics.
That means we care about quality, balance, and feel—and we only stock sets we’d use ourselves. From tournament-grade boards to handcrafted wooden pieces, we’ve got what real players want.
2. Unmatched variety for every player
Whether you're just learning or a lifelong grandmaster, we have something for you.
Looking for a folding set for travel? A stunning showpiece for your home? A kid-friendly set for your budding chess champion? We’ve got it all—and more.
3. Fast and FREE shipping on all orders
Shipping is FREE on all Sterling Chess orders.
We ship quickly from local and international warehouses, so you’re not waiting weeks to get your game on.
Most orders are packed and sent within 24–48 hours. Plus, you’ll get tracking updates every step of the way.
4. Customer support that actually helps
Have a question? Need help choosing a set? Our friendly team is ready to help—no scripts, no bots, just real people who care about your experience.
You can call our team anytime between business hours on (03) 7037 0931 or email us at support@sterlingchess.com.au. Alternatively, you can use our live chat during business hours to contact our helpful support team.
5. Thousands of happy customers
Don't just take our word for it—our reviews speak for themselves. Sterling Chess is trusted by thousands of players who keep coming back for more. Great products. Great service. No hassle.
6. Classic games, too
We're all about chess—but we also carry backgammon, checkers, poker and other timeless strategy games. If you love the classics, you’ll feel right at home.
Ready to make your move?
Choose a chess set that fits your style, skill level, and space—and enjoy the Sterling Chess difference. You’ll love how it looks. You’ll love how it plays. And you’ll love buying from a team that loves the game just as much as you do.
Josef Hartwig designed this in 1924 while he ran the sculpture workshop at the Bauhaus, and the idea behind it is that a piece should look like the move it makes. The rook and pawn move in straight lines, so they are cubes. The bishop moves diagonally, so it carries a diagonal. The knight is an L. The queen is a cylinder with a sphere on top, free to go anywhere.
What that produces is a set with no faces, no crowns and no mitres, in which the tallest piece is the queen at 50mm rather than the king at 49mm. It is the most uncompromising object in our chess sets collection and it is not trying to be a Staunton.
Here it comes paired with a 48cm ebony and boxwood board on 50mm squares, which is generous for pieces this small and entirely deliberate.
Almost every assumption a Staunton set makes is reversed here. There is no height ladder, no royal iconography and no felt. The queen outranks the king in height. The bishop, knight and rook all stand at exactly 29mm and are told apart purely by shape.
That makes it slower to read at first. You cannot scan the back rank for silhouettes the way you can with a Staunton, so early games involve genuinely looking at each piece. Most people report that resolving after a handful of games, at which point the logic of the design starts doing the work instead.
It is a design object that happens to be playable rather than a tournament set with unusual styling. Anyone wanting a set for serious play should look at our Staunton chess pieces instead.
Hartwig specified plain wooden solids with no metal in them and no felt underneath, and the reproduction holds to that. The pieces sit directly on the board on bare timber.
In practice they are light and they slide rather than settle. There is none of the thud that a weighted Staunton gives you. Adding weights would be an easy improvement to the playing feel and it would also be a departure from the design, and on a piece of Bauhaus design history the design wins.
The rule of thumb for a Staunton is that the king base should be around three quarters of the square. Here the king base is 29mm on a 50mm square, which is barely half, and the board looks enormous relative to the pieces.
That is the point. The forms are abstract and they need clear air around them to read as distinct solids rather than as a cluster of small blocks. Crowd them onto 35mm squares and the set becomes visually illegible, which defeats the entire design.
Nearly every set we sell ships with two spare queens for pawn promotion. This one does not, and that is faithful to the original rather than an omission.
In play it means promoting to a second queen requires an inverted rook or a piece borrowed from a captured side, which is how the game was handled before spare queens became standard. If that bothers you, the pattern is also available as pieces without a board and the same constraint applies there. Boards to suit are in our chess boards collection.
Buy this because you want the Hartwig design in the house, not because you want a set to play a league season with. It is unweighted, unfelted, hard to read at speed, and short two queens, and every one of those is a faithful reproduction decision rather than a cost saving. The board pairing is the part that surprises people: 50mm squares under a 29mm base looks absurd on paper and is exactly right in the room, because these forms need air to be legible. The one practical warning is the piece height. At 49mm this is a small set, and anyone expecting tournament presence on the table should look elsewhere.
- Blake Sterling, CEO & Founder, Sterling Chess
Yes. A 48cm board in ebony and boxwood with 50mm squares, 22mm thick, weighing around 3,000g.
The 1924 design did not include spare queens and the reproduction is faithful to it. Promotion is handled with an inverted rook or a captured piece, as it was at the time.
No. They are unweighted and have no felt on the base, exactly as Josef Hartwig specified. They are light in the hand and slide rather than settle.
The king is the cube with the diagonal cross on top at 49mm. The queen is the cylinder with a sphere and is fractionally taller at 50mm, which catches most people out at first.
Yes. The same pattern is on the site as pieces without a board.
|
Spec |
Detail |
|
King height |
49mm (1.92 inch) |
|
King base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Queen height |
50mm (1.96 inch) |
|
Queen base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Bishop height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Knight height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Rook height |
29mm (1.14 inch) |
|
Officer base diameter |
29mm (1.14 inch), bishop, knight and rook |
|
Pawn height |
19mm (0.74 inch) |
|
Pawn base diameter |
19mm (0.74 inch) |
|
Dark pieces |
Ebonised boxwood |
|
Light pieces |
Natural boxwood |
|
Weighting |
Unweighted, no felt, as the original design specified |
|
Piece count |
32, with no spare queens |
|
Chess pieces weight |
410g approximate |
|
Board size |
48cm x 48cm (19 inch) |
|
Board square size |
50mm (2 inch) |
|
Board thickness |
22mm |
|
Board timbers |
Ebony and boxwood |
|
Board weight |
3,000g approximate |
|
Total parcel weight |
3,410g approximate |
|
Designer |
Josef Hartwig, Bauhaus, 1924 |
|
Origin |
Hand made in India |
32 chess pieces
One 48cm ebony and boxwood chess board with 50mm squares
All products sold by Sterling Chess are backed by a 12 month limited manufacturer warranty. This covers manufacturing defects and cracking, and ensures every product is 100% genuine. If you need assistance, our team is only a call or email away.
Is shipping really free?
Yes — we offer free standard shipping on all orders across Australia, with no minimum spend. The price you see at checkout is the price you pay.
Are there any exceptions to free shipping?
No exceptions. Every order ships free, regardless of size, weight, or order value.
How long will my order take to arrive?
Orders are typically dispatched within 1–2 business days, with delivery times depending on your location. You'll receive tracking details by email once your order is on its way.
Do you ship to all areas of Australia?
Yes, we deliver Australia-wide, including regional and remote areas — all at no shipping cost to you.
Can I track my order?
Absolutely. As soon as your order ships, we'll email you a tracking number so you can follow its journey to your door.
What if I need my order quickly?
Get in touch before ordering and we'll do our best to help. Standard shipping is free, and we'll advise on the fastest available option for your area. To contact us, simply email us at support@sterlingchess.com.au, call (03) 7037 0931 or open the live chat.
Changed your mind? You can return unused, unopened items within 100 days of your order date, provided they’re in original packaging and resaleable condition. Sterling Chess will cover the cost of shipping return items under our 100-day free returns policy.
All Sterling Chess products are backed by Australian Consumer Law and include a minimum 12-month Australian warranty. If there’s an issue with your product, our team is here to help and will work to make it right.
Click here to view our full returns policy.
If you're shopping for a new chess set, you're in the right place—and here's why.
1. We know chess inside and out
At Sterling Chess, we're not just another online store. We’re chess lovers, players, collectors, and game night fanatics.
That means we care about quality, balance, and feel—and we only stock sets we’d use ourselves. From tournament-grade boards to handcrafted wooden pieces, we’ve got what real players want.
2. Unmatched variety for every player
Whether you're just learning or a lifelong grandmaster, we have something for you.
Looking for a folding set for travel? A stunning showpiece for your home? A kid-friendly set for your budding chess champion? We’ve got it all—and more.
3. Fast and FREE shipping on all orders
Shipping is FREE on all Sterling Chess orders.
We ship quickly from local and international warehouses, so you’re not waiting weeks to get your game on.
Most orders are packed and sent within 24–48 hours. Plus, you’ll get tracking updates every step of the way.
4. Customer support that actually helps
Have a question? Need help choosing a set? Our friendly team is ready to help—no scripts, no bots, just real people who care about your experience.
You can call our team anytime between business hours on (03) 7037 0931 or email us at support@sterlingchess.com.au. Alternatively, you can use our live chat during business hours to contact our helpful support team.
5. Thousands of happy customers
Don't just take our word for it—our reviews speak for themselves. Sterling Chess is trusted by thousands of players who keep coming back for more. Great products. Great service. No hassle.
6. Classic games, too
We're all about chess—but we also carry backgammon, checkers, poker and other timeless strategy games. If you love the classics, you’ll feel right at home.
Ready to make your move?
Choose a chess set that fits your style, skill level, and space—and enjoy the Sterling Chess difference. You’ll love how it looks. You’ll love how it plays. And you’ll love buying from a team that loves the game just as much as you do.
