I didn’t just create a chess set.

I see it as a mirror, held up to everything that makes us human. It is a record of what we value. A monument to how we think. A gift to whoever carries it forward, and to the game that has carried us together, for over a thousand years.

Chess is the oldest conversation humanity has ever had with itself. For over a thousand years, across every language, every empire, every civilization that has ever risen and fallen, we have sat down together across 64 squares and asked the same question: who are you, and how do you think?

Every game is a story. A kingdom in miniature. A life lived in concentrated form. There is the opening - full of hope, strategy, the thrill of beginnings. The middle game - complex, unpredictable, demanding everything you have. And the endgame - where clarity finally arrives, where patience and vision are rewarded, and where the greatest players reveal their true character not only in victory, but in how they face defeat.

The Pearl Royale Chess Set is the physical embodiment of that conversation, rendered in the rarest materials the earth has ever yielded, not because luxury was the only point, but because the game deserved it. Because the values chess carries, deserve to be made permanent.

The pearl is the nucleus, the beating heart of my creation. A pearl is literally formed by an organism responding to pressure and discomfort with patient, layered beauty. That is precisely what chess teaches, and what the best human lives demonstrate. It was too perfect not to make these luminous orbs the heart and soul of each piece, breathing life and nobility into their forms. The contrast of white and black pearls defined the opposing sides, distinct yet harmoniously balanced.

I considered what this game has always honored.

The King - purpose, responsibility, the weight of consequence.

The Queen - power, versatility, the brilliance that protects everything worth protecting.

The Knight - ingenuity, the unexpected move, the thinker who sees over obstacles rather than through them.

The Bishop - wisdom, the long diagonal view, strategy that operates beyond the obvious.

The Rook - strength, resolve, the steady force that anchors everything else.

And the Pawn - the most profound piece on the board. Small. Often overlooked. And yet: given enough time, enough patience, enough belief in the journey - a Pawn can become anything.

I wanted to create a chess set that embodied real meaning and value. In 2008 I put pen to paper, sketching my early vision of what, (over a decade later) would become the Pearl Royale Chess Set.

I never set out to make the most expensive chess set in the world, but I wanted it to be the most beautiful, symbolizing real value and perhaps one day become the most treasured - Colin Burn