LA GARRIGA (SPAIN) – A Spanish chess board maker found by chance that its products had essayed a cameo role in hit Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit”, and its sales have since increased.
David Ferrer, 30, who runs Rechapados Ferrer, said, “One day I came into work and a colleague, Miguel, told me that Netflix had released a new series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and some Rechapados Ferrer boards appeared in the trailer.”
The series, based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, made its debut in October 2020 and fast became a hit.
It follows orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon as she tries to break the male bastion of the world of chess.
Winning the finale takes her to Moscow to become one of the Soviet Union’s star players. It is during the pivotal scene that the distinctive Rachapados Ferrer chess board gets the limelight.
The company based in La Garriga, near Barcelona, has already had its annual orders doubled from around 22,000 in 2020 to 45,000 for 2021 and has now moved any new orders to 2022.
Ferrer, whose grandfather founded the company in the 1950s, said, “Orders of chess boards have skyrocketed. This year is full in terms of production.”
Ferrer told the board that appears in the finale turned out to be one of the most requested, but is only available through one German distributor. It was through them that the series, most of which was filmed in Berlin, got the boards.
That said, with demand booming and chess becoming more popular than ever, Ferrer says the company might try to sell the board through other channels too.