Woodwork (Marquetry) from the Middle East

[Brad Schmid]

Been on business here in UAE for the last couple days and was doing some gift searching for my family. Since my 6 yr old son loves to play board games, I picked this up for him. Thought some of you Marquetry folks might like to see. It's backgammon on one side, checkers on the other. Inlay is varios flavors of wood, and shell. It's a box, hinged in the middle. Best pictures I could get on the hotel bed

Cheers,
Brad

[Vaughn McMillan]

Brad, the TOS prevent me from saying the first words that came out of my mouth...suffice to say that's some amazing work. Thanks for the pics.

- Vaughn

[Dennis Peacock]

Brad,

Those are awsome.!!! Can anyone say "a lot to time" went into each of those?

[John Hart]

It just amazes me that someone can make something like that and then sell it.....Much less, sell it for an affordable price! I'm with Vaughn...The TOS prevents proper exclamation.....Perhaps "Golly" is appropriate

[Brad Schmid]

Thought I'd post a pic of the sides too. Even more and smaller detail... I'm amazed at the craftsmanship. And John, you're absolutely right. In this part of the world they seem to place most value on the raw materials, and very little on the skill and time it takes to do something like this.

[Rob Russell]

Brad,

The work on that game box is amazing. A couple of questions:

• Is the surface smooth or can you really feel all the piecing?
• What are the approximate dimensions?
• If you don't mind - what did that cost? I'm really curious as to what something like that would sell for.

Your son should really love it.

Now all you need are the hand-carved stone pieces ...

Rob

[Brad Schmid]

Brad,

The work on that game box is amazing. A couple of questions:

• Is the surface smooth or can you really feel all the piecing?
• What are the approximate dimensions?
• If you don't mind - what did that cost? I'm really curious as to what something like that would sell for.

Your son should really love it.

Now all you need are the hand-carved stone pieces ...

Rob

Hi Rob,

Yes, you can feel the piecing in places. Not that the pieces stick out or anything, just very subtle I guess you would call it. It has a light coat or two of lacquer (or something equivalent), so that is probably hiding some imperfections of the joints. Far as I can tell every piece looks like natural woods, dyed woods, or shell. I can tell this mostly from looking at the grain of the individual pieces, the changes in direction in each little piece, and looking at the edges and corners.

The approximate demensions when opened are about 20"x20"x2", closed about 10"20"x4". I guesstimated with a piece of notebook paper as a reference. It did come with the pieces, but nothing special there. Would have been great to have something more elaborate like the board.

As for price, that depends on how good you can bargain I guess The shop's are almost offended if you don't haggle price at least a little bit. I guess it's just part of the culture. Anyway, I "negotiated" 550 Dirhams which at todays exchange rate is about $150 USD. I suppose I could have pushed a little longer, but I had a lot of shopping to do and not much time. Anyway, I wanted to get something for him that he would want to keep for a lifetime and enjoy and I was plenty satisfied at that price. Knowing what a woodworker puts into something like this, I know there's no way myself or probably anyone else on this forum would make and sell something like this for that price.

I did ask the particular shop owner how long it would take someone to make this, he wasn't sure exactly, but he did say more than a month of long days minimum, probably more like 2 months. These folks have no machines.

Cheers

[Jim Becker]

Absolutely beautiful work! I hope this becomes a family heirloom, too...wonderful!

[Keel McDonald]

GORGEOUS!!! Very talented!