Hi all,
Where to buy (online) a decent go board and stones/bowls? 19x19, official sizes. Max. budget 300€
Thanks,
Fred.
Might be useful to mention where you live. Shipping costs can be considerable after all.
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2d hand set can be cheap.
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Belgium.
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For all of Europe I recommend Hebsacker Verlag:
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Yellow Mountain imports sells through Amazon (my own set for ca 100 Euro is from Yellow Stone):
There are also several sets available through Japanese Amazon, for example:
And with the budget version of slate and shell:
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Thanks for all the links!
I’m uncertain whether this pertains to the current subject or if I should initiate a new discussion, but I’m currently undecided on whether to choose a Skinkaya or Agathis board:
vs
All advice is welcome! 
Thanks!
You live in Belgium? In that case, there’s an online advertisment on a Dutch marketplace for unused yunzi stones. I recently bought a set of stones from that person and he has several more, including baskets. Very reasonable priced, a lot cheaper than the ones on Go-Spiel-Onlineshop. He will send at costs. I collected them because he lives near me in the south of the Netherlands and had a short conversation with a friendly and kind man (just in case you might have any doubts on doing business with an individual in stead of a shop).
If you decide on buying a katsura board you are well off with yunzi stones. Katsura is very hard and stones made out of shell may crack. Personally I always place stones gently on the board, I have never felt the urge of smacking one down but it seems to be common behaviour.
Here’s a link for some background information on equipment. Take note of the (deliberate) confusion on types of wood:
Kiseido Go Equipment
And of course I have to mention Solomon’s vintage gear:
Baduk Club Store
Happy hunting!
Kind regards
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Philos also sells go boards/sets among many other classical board games, i bought mine from them around 2015. Not the greatest quality, but good enough for me and the board+stones set was cheap so i can’t complain
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Re: Yunzi stones
Before purchasing—IMNVHO and IMX—terribly brittle single-convex (i.e. flat) Yunzi stones, I’d strongly suggest looking at Mateusz Surma’s “ceramic” stones which are almost unbreakable. I have several sets of these and am very happy
https://polgote.com/en/shop/solid-ceramic-go-stones-single-convex
My double-convex Yunzi stones are all fine though (if there still weren’t some suspicions about their lead content).
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Thanks - this is very useful information. (both the Marktplaats link as the links provided on wood and the baduk club store!)
As I read more, I find myself increasingly uncertain about what decision to make
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I can relate to this.
One thing might be interesting, although it may just be me:
I have, in the past, spent quite some big (for me!) money on “good” Go equipment, you could say that I was a “Go gearhead“ or something: once I purchased a 3 or 4 cm Kaya board, Snow Grade shell & slate stones, and beautiful bowls, used (but actually hardly used, as in “the seller only played ONE game”), for ~450 €, probably about half the price I’d have to have paid for all this if purchased new.
I did enjoy playing with them for quite a while.
But later I realized that shell & slate is not vegan because, contrary to what I’d naïvely believed 
those shells aren’t just collected at the seashore, instead those clams are killed for this reason — and then I found that I’d rather not play with body parts of murdered non-human animals. (Note: This is only part of why “it may just be me”.)
So I switched to Yunzi, double convex. Cheaper, but still not really cheap.
A few years later I got me a used, old (50+ years) and battered slotted board, Katsura I think — and at some time I realized that, once into a game, i.e. after the second or third move, I do NOT AT ALL “think” about the playing material any longer, I don’t even notice … it’s all about the game itself, about the moves, it’s all … in my mind.
Meanwhile I prefer playing on that old and battered board, and with those single convex ceramic stones (the latter because it’s easier to try out variations together with the opponent: play the stones with the back side up and we can easily go back to the original position without ’sploding our heads trying to remember).
In hindsight, I’d say that I was quite snobbish about Go gear.
So … it may just be me but I wouldn’t want to withhold these experiences and thoughts if you’re thinking about spending lots of €€/$$ on Go gear.
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- Find Go club
- Realize all members have more equipment than they need
- Offer to take a set off their hands
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At our local club we use very old DIY boards and stones of different sizes and materials. It really doesn’t matter at all once you’re playing. But I can really appreciate the craftmanship and the sense of decorum using a “classic” set.
P.S.: As a proper vegan, a friend of mine plays with agate stones. Very nice!
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I also didn’t manage to decide between Agatha and shinkaya, so I bought a vintage (shin?)kaya board with she’ll and slate stones from baduk.club instead (which ended up about the same price because it had free shipping). Although I’m not vegan, the stones being used made it felt a bit more moral.
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This seems like a good option for a first Go set (unless you absolutely want something in the Japanese style rather than the Chinese style)
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This is also a nice one.
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Sadly Yellow Mountain in Europe (but not the US) now only have Melamine stones. The sets they sold a year ago when I got mine, had Korean glass stones.
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For reference, i bought in a chess shop in South France a set wood board 1cm thick 13x13 and 19x19 with platic stones, convex and regulat size 30 euros.
With glass stones of good shape may have be like 60 around.
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One can, of course, get a cheap Chinese set with folding board and plastic stones
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