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I have been discussing with my brother about making equipment for chess
variants.

The first question is 'Are there enough potential customers to justify
start-up?'

Second, 'What quality of merchandise is expected?'

Third, 'What are the customers willing to spend to obtain this
merchandise?'

The most inexpensive form would be cloth boards and wooden discs.

The cloth can be printed with any variety of patterns with little
additional cost (althought there may be a minimum number required for a
run, and the size would affect the cost).

Wooden discs can simply be stamped with a letter representing the piece
type (on the opposite side could be noted its promotion value, such as B
for Bishop and B+ for promoted Bishop). These discs can be stained to
color and coated with poyurethane for durability.

Both of these ideas would be easy to manufacture and very inexpensive.
With the customer realizing a 'small' set for possibly $20. Since they
would be light-weight, shipping would not be much. A cloth draw-string bag
to hold the set could be included at additional cost.

This way, the customer can custom-order their set. Specify the board and
the type and number of discs. Each piece can be priced individually.
Common sets may be offered at a reduced price because of mass production.

My suggestion is natural wood for White, a dark stain for Black, black
lettering on White pieces and yellow lettering on Black. Red lettering for
promotion value. The font for the lettering should not be too ornate, but
it should also not be too plain. The playing fields could be either
checkered or non-checkered according to preference, but the colors might
be limited to primary, secondary, black and white.

So, if anyone is interested feel free to drop me an e-mail. If I get
enough interest, I'll start on some samples right away and post a few
images.