I just got a marketing email to this effect from USCF Sales.
Does allowing our partner to promote this make us culpable for the extinction of the woolly mammoth?
More seriously, who would want such a thing? (Answering my own question: I believe Karpov has had such a set.) But if one had a well-preserved fossil tusk fragment, wouldn’t it be better kept as is? We can enjoy beautiful sets without destroying beautiful and scarce fossils. And if such sets inadvertently promote the sale of elephant ivory sets, even in the most indirect way, that really makes me uneasy.
Having registered my ill-defined unease, I ask that USCF be sent a 2.5% commission if this post helps sell the set.
As the permafrost melts in Siberia, more mammoth carcasses have been found. Wealthy chess players can now benefit from global climate change and market forces by buying a mammoth ivory chess set. The recent finds mean that mammoth ivory isn’t so rare a commodity. A savvy collector can place his set in his special game room with the elephant heads, rhinoceros horns, and tiger skins.
For my next birthday a set of Wedgwood Macbeth chess pieces would be lovely. Wedgwood still has the original molds from the Flaxman drawings and makes a limited number of new sets every fifty years or so, IIRC. House of Staunton had a set for a mere $10K eight or ten years ago.
Hint to the writers of the Bones television program…how about an episode involving a murder and chessmen made of human bones?
Re: Tmagchessspgh - Someone who could afford and appreciate it…at least afford it. But your hint at preserving ancient tusks rings hollow with your (semi-serious) plea for a commission. Face it…we all don’t have the money to go catty whompus crazy on what amounts to a whole 32 pieces with which to play a game practically nobody can make a living doing. However, I am glad such things are for sale. Gives me something to aspire to, even if I never get there.
The market for people buying Mammoth Ivory Chess Sets… kinda small. More like some rich guy that buys it just to have it as a decoration because it compliments his reading room, or his yacht.
I’ve seen Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and other similar programs. A lot of the stuff they buy, is to impress people and to make a show of being rich.
An elephant head would be scary! I hope no such trophy really exists. As for the rhinoceros horns…How rich would this person have to be not to sell them for quack medicine? I thought about the set but I’ll pass until I send in my benefactor membership. Chess has really given me a lot and I am looking forward to giving a little back.
But your hint at preserving ancient tusks rings hollow with your (semi-serious) plea for a commission. Face it…we all don’t have the money to go catty whompus crazy on what amounts to a whole 32 pieces with which to play a game practically nobody can make a living doing. However, I am glad such things are for sale. Gives me something to aspire to, even if I never get there.