Many chess sets are missing pieces. In my case, I have 2 full sets of identical pieces (which I guard carefully). The other day, I found half a set of wooden chess pieces that had been thrown away by a neighbor (about 8 white and 12 black, a random assortment). They look to be of average quality (probably a $20-$30 set originally).

 

The problem is, there are so few of them that they are basically worthless for chess, and I don't need any spares. But instead of throwing them away, I decided to try to think of fun things to do with extra chess pieces. I know most boys do crazy things with their toys when they are young, but usually, no one ever messes with chess pieces because you need them all to play! Anyway, the most obvious thing to do (obvious to me, anyway) would be to burn them, since they're made of wood. Then I could take a few pictures for Chess.com. But then I realized that there are probably endless possibilties here, and I wanted to know what sort of ideas I could find out there.

 

So what do you think? What should I do with these extra pieces?

Use them as "land mines" on the board, so that pieces cannot  go to certain squares. Or bake them in a pie.

Hmm... a very nice recipe that would make... why not make them into art? like make a mini throne for the king and queen and some royal subjects and a few prisoners laying around... it'd be a cool picture

this might be nerdy, but you could challenge yourself to fill in the rest of the set by doing your own work. that, or make a really avante garde chess set of mismatched pieces. or yeah burn 'em and take stylized pictures for chess.com

Cool yes, something that would sell for at least $100 on eBay yes, something that would benifit chess.com no. 2 for3 is a D. But is would be VERY COOL!

One guy melted some plastic pieces together in a frying pan to make new pieces for the Gothic chess variant.

Extra queens are always useful for games in which there are multiple pawn promotions. Extra knights, bishops, and rooks are useful for the same reason, although their use would be extremely rare, if not once in a lifetime. Extra pawns are useful to replace pawns that roll under the couch or otherwise get lost.  (I've played at a coffeeshop with a set made up of odds and ends that mixes plastic with wooden pieces). Extra pieces are also useful for constructing odd chess problems. And, finally, incomplete sets are often perfectly fine for the vast majority of endgame studies.

On holiday on one of the Scottish Isles, I found a few strange objects that look like very, very, old chess pieces. Tried burning them, but they are not made of wood. Squat things with funny faces, totally useless. Think I'll chuck them away.

Donate them to a museum if they are that old!

Here's another idea: have a place where everybody sends in their random stray excess chess pieces. These get sorted into sets and donated to third world disaster areas, prisons, etc.

Give them to Loomis!

Loomis has already taken a bunch of my pieces.

glue them on a board that you then hang on the wall as art