In the 1930's a lot of small wood-turning workshops were opened in Sant Pere de Torelló by workers in nearby Torelló textile turneries, fed up with the precarious job conditions they were suffering.

That was the way our company was founded by the brothers Gaspar and Josep Furnols and their sister's husband Josep Graseras in 1935.

In tune with the current attitude of the time and yielding to a blazing spirit as they were daring unknown waters, they named their new enterprise INDUSTRIAS DEL AJEDREZ (CHESS INDUSTRIES) which can be deemed a little exaggerated.

By then a few turneries had been making chess sets in boxwood for some time, two of them JOAN PUIG and JOAN SERRA would be over a hundred years old now.

The first years after its foundation, this company used to make small size chessmen in high quantities which were used by board game manufacturers as accessories in their multi-purpose games. Standard size chess sets for competition and medium size ones were also being produced and sold directly in the market with its own finish and brand name.

The founders tenacity at work deserved the trust of scores of good customers and their rigorous management succeeded in self-financing the business. Thus the firm became well known and appreciated in its sector.

We are heirs to that effort, and thanks to the good groundwork left by the founders we have been able to face the social and economic changes which have happened since.

The natural market for wooden chess sets was toy shops and wholesale merchants. Workforce cost those days made it possible.

Technology development, introduction of new materials and a continuous increase in labour costs limited the market within a circle of people with special interest in the product and purchasing capacity.

Nowadays, few toy shops bother to offer those quality sets, just a small number remain, for service rather than profit reasons. Yet our products are well accepted by shops specialising in games and also by gift shops where quality is usually the main criterion.

In 1976 the firm was constituted as a Joint Stock Company taking the name of the commercial brand and became: INDUSTRIAS DEL AJEDREZ, S.A.. We also indulged ourselves the jest of calling a craftsmen's workshop "Industries".

Our address, "Carrer Rusiñol 6", is the same it was at the firm's foundation, which means that our premises are still in the old part of the town and have expanded "south" with a building on adjacent land at the back which opens into "Carrer Fornés".

We have been trying to stick at quality, improving it by adopting new production methods. However, the types of wood we work with do not allow what we could call industrial production. Today we are a small artisan's firm, connected with others specialising in carving, polychromy and finishing and that scheme allows us to offer such variety and quality in our products that you will hardly find better.

We keep a sizable stock of unfinished products that we can paint or polychrome at customer's request, so that they suit the shades or colours of any board.