Playing piece for a board game

A playing piece for a board game, such as checkers, or the like, has a base, a stem which is mounted centrally in the base and which has a portion protruding above the base and a sliding jacket that is movable between an upper position surrounding the protruding portion of the stem and a lower position exposing the protruding portion of the stem.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The well known game of checkers is played on a board consisting of 
sixty-four squares arranged in eight vertical and horizontal rows by two 
players sitting on opposite sides of the board each of whom has twelve 
pieces, one set conventionally being black (or red) and the other set 
being white. Alternating diagonal rows extending across the board are open 
for play whereas the intervening rows are blocked off. The playing pieces 
may move only diagonally from square to square although, of course, each 
piece of each player may "jump" a piece of the other player which is 
located on an adjacent square and beyond which there is an open square. 
When a piece is "jumped" it is removed from the board. 
If a piece of one player reaches the farthest row from his side of the 
board, i.e. the first fow of the opponent's side of the board, it becomes 
a "king" and this change in status is signified by the opponent placing a 
second piece of the same color called a "crown" on top of the first 
player's piece. A "king" may move more freely both frontwards and 
backwards on the diagonal rows and, of course, may jump other pieces. 
It is the principal object of the instant invention to provide a playing 
piece for a board game, such as checkers or the like, or newly devised 
games playable upon similar boards, which, in itself, possesses the 
attribute of being readily changed from a normal playing to a "king". 
It is yet another object of the instant invention to provide a playing 
piece which facilitates the devising of variations in the game of checkers 
or the creation of new board games played upon a similar board, by reason 
of its design and construction which enables the piece of the invention 
not only to be a single color playing piece (as a standard checker) but 
also to be a "king" or yet a third variation which might be called a "wild 
piece" or "super king", or some other term, depending upon the variation 
of the game being played and the rules of that game.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
In FIG. 1 a number of playing pieces embodying the invention as shown and, 
by the use of more shade lines on their surfaces, some of these playing 
pieces are indicated as being black, and thus bear the reference numbers 
10-B while others are shown as being white and indicated by the reference 
numbers 10-W. The playing pieces, whether indicated by the reference 
numbers 10-B or 10-W are identical and are differently shaded simply to 
illustrate the fact that in the conventional checker game the opponents' 
pieces are differently colored, usually black and white or red and white. 
The pieces 10-B and 10-W of FIG. 1 are shown in position on the diagonal 
playing rows of a conventional checker board, generally indicated by the 
reference number 11. In addition, in FIG. 1 several of the playing pieces 
are shown after they have been "kinged", examples being those playing 
pieces indicated by the reference numbers 10-B-K and 10-W-K, respectively. 
Each of the playing pieces 10 consists of three major parts, viz, a base 
12, a center stem 13 and a vertically movable jacket 14. As best can be 
seen by comparing FIGS. 2 and 3 when the parts of a playing piece 10 are 
assembled, the stem 13 has an upper portion 15 which is surrounded by the 
sliding jacket 14 in its normal position as illustrated in FIG. 2 and is 
exposed to view when the jacket 14 is moved downwardly to the position 
illustrated in FIG. 5 which event occurs when the piece is "kinged". 
Although colors do not constitute a part of the instant invention, it may 
be desirable to give a stem 13, or at least its upper portion 15, a color 
different from either the black or red of one set of pieces or the white 
of the other set of pieces. For example, the exterior surfaces of the stem 
15 might be colored gold or silver so that when the piece is "kinged" as 
shown in FIG. 3, and indicated by the reference numbers 10-B-K or 10-W-K 
of FIG. 1, the stem 13 of constrasting color is sharply apparent. 
The base 12 has an open top cup-shaped body 16 illustrated as being 
circular in shape and a bottom 17. 
In this embodiment of the invention the jacket 14 has a pair of concentric 
and spaced depending walls 18 and 19 which are unitarily molded and 
connected to each other at their respective upper ends. The outer wall 19 
has an internal diameter such that it closely embraces the exterior of the 
base body 16 upon which it slides when moving being the positions 
illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3. The inner wall 18 of the jacket 14 is split 
vertically forming, in this embodiment, three downwardly extending arms at 
the lower ends of which there are inwardly extending lugs 20. The outside 
diameter of the inner wall 18 is such that space is provided between it 
and the inner surface of the base wall 16 for the vertical movement of the 
inner wall 18 and its lugs 20 between the positions of FIGS. 2 and 3. 
The inner apparent diameter of the lugs 20 is such that the lugs 20 
frictionally engage and slide on a lower end 21 of the stem 13. This lower 
portion 21 of the stem 13 has lug receiving recesses 22 and 23 at its 
upper and lower ends, respectively. As the jacket 14 reaches either the 
upper position of FIG. 2 or the lower position of FIG. 3, the resiliency 
of the arms 19 of the inner jacket wall 18 causes the lugs 20 to snap into 
the recesses 22 or 23 thus giving a positive indication both by feel and 
audibly that the jacket 14 has reached a limit of its travel and also 
functioning to retain the jacket 14 at the position to which it has been 
moved or in which it is desired to be positioned as, for example, at the 
beginning of a game when all of the jackets 14 of all of the pieces 10 are 
in normal position shown in FIG. 2. 
The stem 13 has a lowermost tenon 24 of such size as to fit tightly into a 
socket 25 at the center of the upper surface of the base bottom 17. 
In assembling the three major portions of a playing piece 10 embodying the 
invention, it will be seen that the base 12 is placed upon a surface and 
the jacket 14 slid downwardly with its outer wall 18 circumscribing the 
body 16 of the base 12. The stem 13 is then moved downwardly through the 
inner space of the jacket wall 18 until its tenon 24 seats firmly in the 
socket 25. If desired, of course, some form of adhesive may be employed to 
permanently secure the stem tenon 24 in the socket 25. However, by 
suitable selection of the material from which the parts are fabricated, a 
tight frictional assembly is adequate for retaining the parts in the 
position illustrated in the drawings. 
In the illustrated embodiment the stem 13 has an outwardly flared 
frusto-conical "crown" 26 at the top of its upper portion 15 and the top 
of the "crown" 26 may be closed in the embodiment of FIGS. 1-6 by a disc 
27. The disc 27 may be colored to correspond to the colors of the 
respective base 12 and jacket 14 if desired or it may be colored to 
correspond to the color of the upper portion 15 of the stem 13. In this 
embodiment, the disc 27 is recessed into the upper end of the stem "crown" 
26 thus leaving the uppermost annular lip of the "crown" 26 visible as a 
ring indicated by the reference number 28 in FIG. 2 even when the jacket 
14 is in its upper position surrounding the upper portion 15 and "crown" 
26 of the stem 13. 
If it is desired to provide a special playing piece, for example one which 
might be called a "super king" or the like, a top disc 28 (FIG. 7) may be 
employed with the upper end of a crown 29 cut down a sufficient distance 
so that when the jacket is in its upper, normal position, as shown in FIG. 
7, the color of the crown 29 and thus the upper portion of the stem are 
hidden from view. A piece embodying the invention as illustrated in FIG. 7 
may be included, for example, in each of the players' sets and an opponent 
would not know which of the pieces is a "super king" because the stem of 
that piece would be hidden from view. Its stem would have a different 
color to indicate its "super king" status when its jacket is moved 
downwardly to expose its stem. It might be that such a "super king" would 
be permitted to move from one diagonal row transversely to another 
diagonal row under certain conditions. Such a "super king" might remain 
hidden to a player's opponent until a time when the particular player saw 
an advantage to be achieved by exposing his "super king" piece and 
accomplishing an unusual and, perhaps, devastating move.