I'm interested in buying a standard sized 19x19 go board with engraved lines that don't fade over time and use. Are there any that have this? Thanks.

This store in Canada says their boards are laser-etched.
http://www.glowingstone.org/go_equipment.php



You might also consider looking at inlaid boards. They are expensive, but beautiful, and would also not fade.

If you're allowed to tell me the names of the websites that sell such boards...I'm interested.

Rickofricks usually has this listing on Ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/INLAID-WOOD-GO- ... 1084894731

He sells lots of Go stuff. I bought my first board from him off Ebay about a year ago. This one is sadly out of my price range, but it looks great in the pictures.

And here's a European store that sells something like it. (Of course, I don't know what country you're in.)
http://en.aobo-shop.com/go-boards/324-g ... 20445.html

Poking around looking at Go equipment online has become sort of a hobby,

Have you visited the Go Sightings section of my blog?

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Yes, from time to time. You post some pretty cool stuff there, I loved those bowls you posted a month or so ago.

Hebsacker in Germany has a number of bamboo boards with engraved lines. You can look at them here. "Engraved lines" in German is: "gefrästen Linien." (Or you can use the website's google translate function, in which case they are called "milled lines.")

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Patience, grasshopper.

Wow, those rosewood boards with white lines are great!

Bad news, though...I e-mailed Rick to ask him a question about the Ebay board, and he said it was sold out and the listing should have been removed.

Hope he gets more.

Are the boards on Yellow Mountain Imports painted or engraved?

Painted. The bamboo board I bought from YMI had painted lines below the finish, which I suppose has the effect of making them "embossed" since the surface is perfectly smooth.

I don;t know if you're still looking, but I recently got this folding board from TheGoGameStore.com, and the lines are etched, and the hoshi burned in.

They sell a similar, non-folding bamboo board for the same price, and while I couldn't guarantee it, since I haven't seen that board in person, I would guess that one's probably etched as well.

So you didn't have any problems with the Go Game Store? Their prices are so low, and their website so weird, that I worried it was a scam.

Recently they were updating their website, and the front page led nowhere while it was under construction. It's fixed, now.

The prices are low, but the shipping costs are considerable. The shipping cost on the bamboo go board was supposed to be $25. That still puts it at $40 total, which is reasonable.

The board is a bit rough around the edges, though. (Literally.) The back side isn't finished and has a rough feel, the screws aren't flush on the back and the slots in them look slightly strained--looks like they didn't really want to go into that hard bamboo. All that's keeping the hinge from scratching your table is four really wimpy foam feet, which I will be replacing as soon as possible with something stronger and thicker. That obviously wouldn't be a problem with the non-folding board, though.

I bought a carrying bag for it, too, and that I have no complaints about at all. It seems very nice, with internal pockets for the board and go stones.

I also was given an awesome deal on shipping, because I managed to get into their site when it was supposed to be closed, and they had mistakenly listed $5 shipping on everything, which they honored even though that must have been much less than shipping cost.

So I am grateful, and certainly have no complaints about their customer service.

Thanks for the website link. I checked out their boards and there's nothing in there saying they're engraved. I wish they were. Can you imagine how quickly such Go boards would sell? I purchased the portable folding Go board from YMIports. I'm awaiting the arrival of my Yunzi Double Convex stones I ordered after getting the portable board first.

I still can't beat the computer at Go.

This is something I don't understand...why are these stores only selling gobans with painted lines and not engraved? Wouldn't it make more sense to manufacture gobans with laser etched lines? Even if they cost more...surely the benefits outweigh the negatives in offering such boards like that.

Have you seen my thread Just a picture of my first goban?

In my experience, painted lines are unlikely to fade unless you really mistreat the board. It happens rarely with the boards at our club, and those take quite a lot of abuse. They get drinks spilled over them, they slide over other boards every time you put them on our take them off the stack of boards, they have bowls put on top of them and slid around, etc.

Given that go is already a small market in the west, I guess there just isn't that much demand for engraved lines if the benefit is small and they are more expensive.

Yes I saw that picture and it makes me drool with envy. That's what boards should look like and frankly, be standardized.

A combination of history and preference. Personally I would prefer painted lines than engraved. If there's a market for engraved, then someone will fill it.