You're thinking of mass producers like Apple, which hit both high volume and high price points. Mass producers like Apple have enough revenue to pay for the hig

You're thinking of mass producers like Apple, which hit both high volume and high price points. Mass producers like Apple have enough revenue to pay for the higher quality standards within mass production. Championship chess sets, even if you could somehow produce them for $5/set, are not going to have the sales volume to justify the cost of the automation + solid QA.