The old "Table Shogi Boards!" and "Floor Shogi Boards" threads here are archived now, so I'm starting a fresh one with actual numbers, because the question that always comes up (can I get real equipment without paying US-shop prices?) has a two-part answer: the pieces, yes, easily; the board, only if you think about the parcel first.
Where the money goes on a set
A shogi set is a board, 40 pieces and two komadai. Only the pieces are really the Japanese part. The grades, cheapest first: plastic (classroom sets, roughly 2,000-3,000 yen), 押し駒 / stamped wood (the value tier), 彫り駒 / carved and lacquer-filled (prices climb steeply from here, and above that you're paying for calligraphy styles and named carvers, not playability). 天童将棋駒 (Tendo, Yamagata) is the reference name for the middle tiers; Tendo pieces got national traditional-craft designation in 1996, and when a listing says 天童 that's what it's invoking.
What it costs in Japan today (stock-checked 12 Sep 2026, ordinary domestic Amazon.co.jp listings, no collector markup)
- Kawada wooden shogi pieces KBG-05: 1,064 yen (about US$7.34)
- 天童 stamped pieces in a paulownia box: 2,171 yen (about US$14.98)
- Hanayama folding portable go board, 19x19: 927 yen (US$6.40) - included because a lot of people here play both
- 361 melamine go stones: 1,790 yen (US$12.35)
So a perfectly decent named-origin set of pieces is under US$16 before shipping. Most of these domestic listings, and practically all second-hand ones on Mercari or Yahoo Auctions, won't ship abroad, which is where a forwarding/proxy service comes in.
The board is the catch, and it's about weight, not price
Live carrier quotes from the same forwarder, today:
- A 400 g box of pieces to the US: US$17.44 economy air (10-20 days), US$31.59 DHL (3-7 days). To the UK: US$25.56 EMS; to Germany: US$22.37 EMS.
- A 2.5 kg set with a table board: US$29.88 economy air to the US, but US$68.16 EMS to the UK and US$55.03 to Germany (sea mail to Europe is about US$26-29, 30-90 days; there is no sea option to the US on this forwarder).
Airline pricing uses volumetric weight (L x W x H / 5000), so a 2-sun or 3-sun board is expensive twice: once for its real weight and again for its box. A floor board with legs is a wonderful object and a terrible parcel. For a serious kaya board, a specialist like Aoyama Gobanten (mentioned in the old thread) that ships FedEx direct is still the sane route. For everything else - pieces, komadai, a folding board, second-hand sets from auctions - the proxy route is cheap and the pieces are light enough that the shipping is the smaller half of the bill.
Full write-up with the go side, a fee table and the exact listings I checked:
blog.onemall.jp/2026/09/08/shogi-go-sets-from-japan-tendo-koma-goishi-cheap-cheapest-2026/?ch=blog_shogigo_exter
The current domestic shelf for 将棋 駒 (prices in yen, updates daily):
www.onemall.jp/search?keyword=%E5%B0%86%E6%A3%8B%20%E9%A7%92&q=%E5%B0%86%E6%A3%8B%20%E9%A7%92&ch=blog_shogigo_exter
Would be curious what people here actually paid for their komadai - that's the one item I couldn't find a sensible cheap source for.
You can't post in the forums yet. Play some games!