Gift Watch: Armando Ramírez’s Recycled Chess Set

This year, I’ll be posting a daily Gift Watch, featuring items that I think would make great gifts. Even the godless exchange gifts in December, and there’s no shortage of cool gadgets, books, records and art to shower on your friends and family this year. Enjoy.

Amando Ramirez makes amazing gifts (useful ones, not just installations) out of recycled car parts, and the chess set is the most brilliantly executed of the bunch.The queens are made from screws, cogs and bearings from a car’s electrical system. The bishops are shaped from sparkplugs and the towers from cogwheels. The board is made from a metal sheet and features ornate iron wires and bendix caps taken from a car’s electrical system.

Novica’s page for Ramirez’s work.