Thank you for the suggestions - These poor pawns are probably 40 years old and not in the best shape. I elected to practice some PS skills and did some cleanup on the dust and re-posted -- Tabs :)
Nice job, Tabs... I really like this shot a great deal. Since you asked (*), when you are going to do a close-up shot like this and you want to REALLY get into the details of it, turn those pawns that show the plastic mold mark so they are not visible by the camera nad, dust off the pawns... lowly as they are, they play an important role in your image lol. I like the lighting on your image as well. Markjay
Very good DOF, nice lighting, and great compostion for such simple subject. Would have liked to see different background possibly and maybe keep it odd number of 7 vs 8.