About The Chess Cabinet
Ask why at least five times
Welcome to my online chess cabinet - created to help catalogue and view my chess sets from anywhere in the world. My collection outgrew my available display space a while back, and storing them in this virtual cabinet sure beats rummaging around through piles of boxes.
I also hope this site can become a helpful reference for fellow collectors.
About the cabinet maker
Hi, I'm Jonathan Angell
In 1979, when I was just seven years old, I encountered a variety of chess sets at my school's chess club (Oakwood Preparatory School, near Chichester). I almost won the school chess competition in that same year - having come through several rounds, playing unconventional openings (I knew no better), I succumbed in the final to a 13 year old. I remembered thinking it would have been terribly embarrassing for him to lose to a first year. There were some cracking old sets in the school and, unfortunately, we cracked quite a few with our youthful lack of respect as we chucked the pieces back into the box willy-nilly at the end of club. I doubt if any have survived.
My collection journey started in 2017 or so, and I still feel very new to the collecting world. There are very many wonderful collectors out there who have spent decades researching and contributing to the body of knowledge, and to them I am very grateful. We stand on the shoulders of giants, as they say.
Collectors appear, on the whole, to be completely bonkers to anyone outside of the community. I should know. I am also a collector of fountain pens. When I tell a chess collector that I also collect fountain pens, they look at me as if I am mad "Fountain pens? Why on earth?". Equally, if I tell a pen collector that I also collect chess sets, they too look bemused "I didn't know people collected such things!".
As a Christian, I often have to challenge myself not to allow chess sets to become an idol which takes my eyes off of what is important in life. Indeed, I have allowed really rather unique and special sets to move on before I am ready, in order to maintain a healthy attitude towards them. I do not want to become Tolkein's Gollum, prepared to jump into a fiery lake with "my precious"! I strive to maintain a good balance - which means that any and all of the sets in my collection will, at some point, be for sale (well, there might be one or two precious exceptions!)
It is an absolute joy and privilege to be a steward of these old sets and to be a part of their history - in the sure hope that one day they will pass on to the next collector, who in turn will marvel at the artistry of a craftsman long since departed.
