Burl, Tree Trunk and Pearl: The Limited Editions

A workshop that makes games every day learns a great deal about wood. It learns which panels take a finish evenly and which resist it, how grain behaves when a veneer is laid, how a colour deepens over years of hands and light. Most of that knowledge disappears into the product; you feel it in a board that closes cleanly and lies flat. Occasionally, it is put on display.

The Manopoulos limited editions are that display. Made in small numbers in the workshop in Thebes, they are still games in every sense, with a full playing field, checkers, dice and cups, but they are built around materials most boards would never use. El Laguito Cigars carries three of them: two backgammon boards and a chess set.

The walnut tree trunk

The Limited Edition Backgammon in walnut tree trunk does something few game boards attempt. Its face is the natural edge of a walnut trunk: not a flat, even panel, but the outline and grain of the tree itself, with the irregular line where the wood met the bark. Closed, it looks less like a game than a piece of the tree.

Open it and the board becomes precise. The playing field is thermo-treated oak, a wood whose colour has been deepened by heat treatment, with points in walnut and oak. The case measures 48 × 30 cm and has side racks for the checkers, so pieces waiting to enter or already borne off sit neatly at the edge rather than on the table. Handcrafted inlaid veneer work, a hand finish and brass-finish hardware complete it.

Because every trunk is different, every board is different. The shape of the edge, the run of the grain, the tone of the walnut: none of it repeats. Manopoulos says it plainly about all its wooden pieces. Natural wood cannot be free of imperfections, and uneven grain and differing shades are part of its character and proof of its authenticity. On this board, that is the whole point.

Burl and pearl

Burl is the name for the swirling, knotted growth that sometimes forms on a tree, where the grain turns back on itself instead of running straight. Cut and laid as veneer, it gives patterns that no straight-grained wood can match: eyes, ripples and clusters that can look almost like stone. Cabinetmakers have prized it for exactly that reason. It is also unpredictable: a burl is never quite the same twice, and the maker has to work with the figure the tree has given rather than one chosen in advance.

The Limited Edition Backgammon in natural burl with pearl elements takes its character from that kind of figure, and it shows what the Thebes workshop can do with veneer. Its playing field lays up wenge, mahogany and walnut with mother-of-pearl elements, on the same 48 × 30 cm case with side racks. The near-black of wenge, the warm red-brown of mahogany and the deeper brown of walnut sit side by side, and the pearl catches the light between them.

This is the marquetry tradition Manopoulos works in, an art that flourished in Europe in the 16th century, applied to a board that is meant to be played on. The story on marquetry in this journal explains how that kind of work is built up piece by piece.

Both limited-edition backgammon boards come with 30 mother-of-pearl acrylic checkers, two dice and two dice cups, and both are fitted with brass-finish hardware.

Pearl on the chessboard

The third limited edition is a chess set, and it sits at the top of the Manopoulos metal range. The chessmen follow the classic Staunton pattern, the design that dates from 1849 and became the standard for serious play. They are cast in brass and pewter finish and set with mother-of-pearl elements, and the king stands 10 cm tall.

The board is handcrafted brass, 44 × 44 cm, hand-patinated to its colour and fitted to a wooden case. There are four versions: brown, red, green, and black and white, the last with chessmen in gold and silver finish. Every piece is cast, finished and inlaid with pearl by hand in Greece.

Metal chessmen are where the Manopoulos story begins. At 21, while studying at art university, Costas Manopoulos made his first chess figures in bronze for a young-talents exhibition at the University of Athens. More than half a century later, this set shows how far that first idea has travelled.

Collecting and keeping

A limited edition is not a museum piece. These boards are built to be played, and a board that is used and cared for looks better for it. A few habits help.

• Mind the light. Keep boards out of direct sun, which can fade wood and leave it unevenly toned.
• Mind the air. Keep them away from heaters and from extremes of humidity.
• Dust dry. A soft, dry cloth is all the cleaning they need. No water and no household sprays.
• Keep the box. Every piece leaves the Thebes workshop in its original packaging, and for a limited edition it is worth keeping.

The story on caring for a wooden game board in this journal goes further, including when a wax or conditioner is appropriate.

A board that stays in the family

Pieces like these tend to become the board in a house: the one that comes out when the family gathers, the one someone remembers learning on, the one that is eventually handed down. That is what a limited edition is really for. El Laguito Cigars carries the Manopoulos limited editions and supplies them anywhere in Canada.