Brandt & Board. Pre-owned luxury made accessible, authenticated and guaranteed.
It started because I couldn't find a set worth keeping.
I'd played chess since I was twelve. By 2011 I'd owned four or five sets — all of them either too light to feel right, or made somewhere unspecified from something unspecified, or both. A colleague brought a set to a weekend gathering that year: solid walnut board, weighted pieces, turned by hand. I asked where he'd got it. He shrugged and said a retired joiner had made it for him. That was the moment.
We began in a workshop with two benches and a small lathe. There are now five of us — two on the turning floor, one doing the finishing and weighting, one handling the boards and inlay, and me managing the lot. We build between forty and sixty sets a year. That's not a lot. It's exactly as many as we can build properly.
Every piece is turned from seasoned hardwood — European walnut, English boxwood, ebonised pear. We weight the bases by hand, felt the bottoms ourselves, and inspect each set against a reference piece before it ships. The board joinery is done in-house. We don't buy in pre-cut squares and assemble them.
What we don't do: we don't rush commissions to hit a calendar date, we don't substitute materials without telling you, and we don't sell sets we wouldn't keep ourselves.
Join a community of collectors and players who've trusted handmade work over catalogue convenience — men who know the difference between a set that was made and a set that was manufactured. That distinction still matters here.
— David Brandt, founder
A set worth keeping for thirty years.
We don't make pieces to a price point. We make them to a standard — one that holds up when you pass the board on.
The hands behind the board.
David Brandt
Founder & Workshop LeadDavid has worked with hardwoods for over twenty years, the last fourteen focused entirely on chess sets and
Robert Ashfield
Senior TurnerRobert trained as a furniture maker and spent a decade in a joinery before joining Brandt & Board in 2013.
Thomas Kühn
Finishing & WeightingEleven years on the finishing bench. Thomas weights, felts, and inspects every piece by hand — he's the last
Geraldine Marsh
Customer Care & OrdersGeraldine manages all commissions, correspondence, and dispatch coordination.
