No extra Queens? No problem!

Does your chess set with no extra Queens got you down?

No extra Queens? No problem!

Anri Universum "Satellite" Knights make great classy stand-ins for generic pawn-promotion pieces. Why should Queens have all the fun? Frank Cammarata got it wrong when starting the practice of including extra Queens. Don't assume the pawn promotion will be a Queen. A generic marker piece is more versatile. 

On a thought-provoking metaphysical level, the Universum Knight form looks like the round ball of the pawn head is in the process of morphing into a different shaped piece. Similar to a T-1000 Skynet Terminator in T2. Haha. 

Scooby knight: "What the heck is that? Looks scary!"

Did someone call upon The Scooby?

Yeah terrible idea.  You'll spend the rest of the game "you said it was this" ... "no I said it was that"... blah blah blah.

You don't really though, do you. Piece promotion happens rarely outside the endgame. In the endgame, there aren't many pieces on the board, and everyone should remember what it is. If it's before the endgame, the novelty of the experience means everyone should remember what it is.

If it's a serious setting, the moves will be notated and it will be easy to check what the piece is should there be any confusion.

If the problem is that you just don't trust an opponent not to change their mind after a promotion and lie about what piece it is, then why are you playing with that person?

For my part, I think spare queens are the way to go. A generic promotion piece is a novelty and I like the idea of non-standard pieces in principle: it's the same part of me that gets a thrill from fairy chess pieces - but in the absence of an agreed standard, the queen is surely the optimum piece to use. On an "at-a-glance" reading, the correct piece is surely best, too.

But I don't think the argument that people will forget what it was or that it will cause arguments holds much water either.

I agree with sound67 100%

The idea of a generic piece is horrendously bad.

It is very rare to have more than one queen on the board. You can use an inverted rook or a lighter or something like that ...

The generic marker is a symbolic piece. The presence of it on the board after pawn promotion is to remind your opponent to take a deep breath and dial back off of Full Tilt. "You resign now." gg.  

I love it!  It looks like something from Star Wars.  
Heck, I have extra Queens for all my sets since I have even bought a second set if needed.  But, I would buy at least 2 “sets” of these just to have.  
It probably isn’t practical to do, but I think it would be cool if the shape of this piece could change to better represent the piece it stands for.  
sound67, don’t hold back here.  Tell us what you really think about it.  Because if this catches on you will be forced to buy many of these.  Oh, and if this goes through, you will also have to get a cat!

I need to clarify.  I meant that it would be interesting if this piece were adjustable so that if it were to act as a Queen it would be in one configuration.  A little twist or something and it would more resemble a Knight.  And after a different configuration it would resemble a Rook and after that a Bishop.

And sound67, I believe there is a proposal in the EU to make such a piece official.  And there is a clause stipulating that violin sellers that own Chess sets have to get and own at least one cat as a pet.

I purchased the 2 loose Anri Universum spares on Etsy/eBay for cheap. CB sells repro Universum sets for $100. Sold out now (of course) but at least CB knows of it. And have the specs on hand. I think mine are vintage. Didn't really check or research it. Leaving it a mystery is quite fitting for a Scooby Set. Hah!

Looks like the Cloaked Ghost of Meatball chasing Scoobies all over the board!

Was thinking, how about a set for the LGBT community , that means we need extra kings / As well as queens  ? As the chess pawn is transgender when it makes it to the 8th sq

Replace the Knight piece with the Anri Universum Knight and the Rook piece with a Bone Barleycorn Rook in a standard chess set, and you'll get the perfect chess set with intuitive Pawn promotion. If there a ball on top of the piece, the Pawn can promote to it.