Are they that expensive though? Plenty of sports have more expensive equipment and often that's not even handmade, much less durable and associated with a stron

Are they that expensive though? Plenty of sports have more expensive equipment and often that's not even handmade, much less durable and associated with a strong in-group/out-group mechanism that I don't really see in chess. If you made it to the world championships never having touched anything but plastic pieces, would they think less of you? I suspect quite the opposite..