Have you tried just contacting them by email first and sending a photo of the damaged piece above? I would have thought any reputable company that would be good enough and they would send a replacement free of charge without you having to send damaged piece back.
Small workmanship defect: how serious?
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HoS needs to know about your issue so that they can correct it. Do it sooner than later.
Yeah, letting them know is great, and I will, but their warranty is very clear and strict about requiring the defective piece be sent back at my expense. (They cover shipping on the replacement.) It’s very likely I’d end up spending US$50 in the end on shipping charges, and have an unusable set with no white king for multiple weeks. Plus there’s a non-negligible chance of the shipment just going missing one way or the other.
Actually I should contact them and see if it’s possible to just straight-up buy a replacement piece. It would likely be no more expensive if they don’t charge the cost of a whole set.
Actually I should contact them and see if it’s possible to just straight-up buy a replacement piece. It would likely be no more expensive if they don’t charge the cost of a whole set.
@Paleobotanical, Send a high resolution photo of the defect to HOS. I did not have to send my defective piece back to HOS when one of my Drueke repro had tool marks like yours. They just shipped me a replacement free of charge.
@zagryan Thanks, may as well give it a shot!
I've dealt with HoS a lot. Every set I have purchased had issues except for the first two. I did not check the first two which could be the reason. Anyhow, I always send photos and an explanation. They normally do not require the pieces to be sent back. There were two exceptions for me. One time I reported some minor issues with ebony pieces I received. HoS agreed to replace them but they required I send them back. I assumed the reason was so they could resell them. I did not have to pay for the shipping. They sent me a label. I put the pieces in a box and off it went. The second time was something where I needed them to fix a piece that was broken. It was covered under warranty. I don't remember what was wrong with it but HoS again sent me a label to ship it back to them. The only time I had to pay shipping was to return a set I didn't like. It was the 4" Collectors in Ebony. I paid to ship that back to HoS.
Just send HoS some photos and ask them to replace the pieces. More than likely you will not have to send it back.
Everyone kept responding about HOS and piece replacement, but no one answered the more relevant question that Paleobotanical had.
“Does anyone have any experience with this type of damage and is it likely to be a problem in a few years? Or, will it be just fine if the pieces are stored carefully?”
I’d also be interested in having this answered. Can anyone help. Please, just answer the question and don’t start focusing on repairs, etc. You can do that afterwards, if you want. Thanks.🙏
I would get it replaced. I just had my first defect show up in one pawn. And I have been buying chess sets for years. And on a chess set that is about 45 days old with a lifetime warranty.
The manufacture wanted to charge me $28 to ship me a new pawn. And wanted to know if that was acceptable. I told them that was outrageous, and I would not accept anything but a no cost to me replacement of the pawn.
And I gave them the choice to either honor their lifetime warranty, or this would be the last chess set I buy from them.
And I sent them a picture of the many chess sets I have purchased from them....
Guess what happened......
Forget about replacements. Look, if you buy a set from eBay, on the secondary market, there will be no future guarantees, warranties, or anything else. Now, some of us would like to know, If a chess piece gets a hairline crack, will it continue to deteriorate or will the hairline crack be the final phase of the deterioration. Can I just ignore the hairline damage, or will the piece gradually deteriorate, even if it is properly cared for?
It can continue to deterorate. If the piece can not be replaced. I would learn how to restore the chess piece. To stop any more damage.
Thanks. That’s what I wanted to know. HoS has a Paulsen set in Ebony and boxwood on sale for $250 with hairline cracks that don’t look bad at all. But, if they will continue to deteriorate, who needs that headache? Thanks again.
I purchased a wood chess set from House of Staunton in December. The white king appears to have a very small, shallow crack in the base. They have a one-year warranty that requires sending in the damaged piece.
Since I’m in Iceland, it’s costly and time-consuming to send the piece back to them in Alabama. If the issue is purely cosmetic, then I’ll just keep using the set, since I bought it for my family to use to play, not to show off. However, if this type of crack is likely to get a lot worse over time, then that changes things.
Does anyone have any experience with this type of damage and is it likely to be a problem in a few years? Or, will it be just fine if the pieces are stored carefully?