MagicPuzzles.org

I had the good fortune of attending the 29th International Puzzle Party on Sat, 8/8/09.   It was conveniently located in San Francisco, which is within an hours’ drive of my home.  The first puzzle party was in 1978 in the home of Jerry Slocum, who has one of the largest puzzle collections in the world.  Since then it’s grown into a multi-day event, with the location changing to a different part of the world every year.  It’s an invitation-only event for serious designers, makers, and collectors of puzzles.  I actually had to send in an application to Slocum himself.

The event includes lectures, panels, exhibits, dinners, and tours of the local area.  The primary events, however, are:

(1) The puzzle party.  This is basically a puzzle swap meet.  Puzzle designers and dealers have tables to hawk their wares.  Many times extra copies of exchange puzzles are available for sale.

(2) The puzzle design contest.  Contestants submit one copy of their puzzle along with the solution.   Most prizes are awarded by a panel of experts.  However, there is also one award that is determined by everyone who wants to vote.  The puzzles and solutions are set up on tables in a room.

(3) The puzzle exchange.  Participants make about 100 copies of their puzzle.  In exchange, they get 1 copy of every other participant’s puzzle.  The puzzles are high quality non-commercial original designs.  If you want to participate, you had to spend one exchange just observing, so that you understand the process as well as the quality of puzzle you are expected to bring.

With the limited amount of time and money I had, I honed in on the one event I was interested in: the puzzle party.  I had saved up money for months.  I convinced my brother Derek to go: family members are permitted; they pay a reduced admission fee.  He was definitely the right person to go with, since he’s interested in high-quality woodwork.  We spent about 6 hours shopping at the party and both wound up spending more than we expected.  Afterward we got some lunch and Derek headed off to meet with our uncle.

Since I was only at the IPP one day, I decided to make the best of it and attend some lectures.  During a lecture on puzzles in education, a speaker mentioned something about a puzzle exhibition.  I ducked out of the end of the lecture and went to the exhibition room, which had some interesting puzzles.  During the next lecture on wood puzzle care, I realized that the contest was still taking place.  I wished I had realized it earlier.  The contest room was pretty empty – I guess most of the attendees had already played with the contest entries.  I didn’t have much time, so I wound up playing with and then quickly looking at the solution of most of the take-apart puzzles.  My favorite is the Trillium Box by Peter Wilshire, which has a very unusual mechanism.  Unfortunately, I don’t think he has any plans to make and sell any copies.

IPP29 exchange puzzles

Here’s me at the party in back of a table of the exchange puzzles.

Rocky Chiaro

Rocky Chiaro makes brass puzzles.  He’s known for his intricate bolt puzzles.  The object is generally to remove a nut or washer.  Of course, the bolts are not what them seem.  My object at the start of the party was to get some of the bolt puzzles and some of William Strijbos’ bottle puzzles.  Strijbos didn’t bring any of his bottles, and it was the same price to buy Chiaro’s puzzles from him online as at the IPP, but I didn’t get either.

Simon Nightingale

Simon Nightingale is the designer of the one piece packing puzzle, which I’ve described in a previous post.  He had a few puzzles for sale.  One is the “Great Escape,” which won him an honorable mention in the competition.  Another is the “One Block Box Puzzle.”  It’s similar to the one piece packing puzzle, but larger and made of corian, which is some kind of synthetic stone.  In both, the object is to put the center piece into the box so that it rests flat.  The puzzle must have a much different solution.  I was able to solve the one piece packing puzzle pretty quickly, but I haven’t been able to get anywhere with this one.

When Nightingale saw that I was a first time IPP attendee (it’s noted on the name badge), he gave me corian packing puzzle I just described for free!  I also witnessed him giving away one of his Great Escapes puzzles to someone else.  It was a very generous gift – he was selling the puzzle for $70.  From the size and construction, I have no doubt it’s worth that price.

Saul Bobroff

I bought one of Bobroff’s “impossible” objects.  It was a ring of four plumbing elbows.  It’s easy to screw 3 together, but how do you put the fourth one in?  They are ordinary, unmodified plumbing elbows.

Bobroff had another impossible object that I didn’t but.  It was a transparent plastic block about 1″ on each side with 9 curved holes drilled in it.

I really enjoy “impossible” objects.  If only I had the time to figure it out and make one…

Oskar van Deventer

Oskar van Deventer is quite a prolific puzzle designer.  You can see the wide variety of Rubik’s cube-style puzzles that he’s figured out how to make.  One of the most impressive ones was a 1×2x13 cube that he calls “Unlucky Twist”.  I didn’t even realize it was possible to make something like that.  Check it out here on YouTube.  You can also find links there to videos of some of his many other puzzles.  You can even buy one for around $400 at Shapeways, which produces items on demand with 3D printing.  Some of van Deventer’s other puzzles are available there too.

Nick Baxter

Nick Baxter is a puzzle designer who also runs a puzzle auction.  The auction contains items from a few private collection, most prominently that of John Ergatoudis.  He’s holding a copy of his exchange puzzle.

Baxter held an open house the Tuesday before the IPP.  He was getting rid of a lot of puzzles for cheap.  They were primarily mass-produced puzzles.  I looked through the piles of puzzles, mostly gathering puzzle boxes made by Bits and Pieces.  Most of them Bits and Pieces no longer sells.  I brought up a group of around 10-15 puzzles for Baxter to price.  After looking through all of them, he told me $40 for the lot.  I was shocked at how low he was selling everything for.  I was expecting to have to put back a lot of the items; instead, I took them all and went back for more.  I got every Tucker-Jones House tavern puzzle (see my earlier post on these puzzles) he had that I didn’t already have.  18 tavern puzzles at $3 each!!!  Now I think I’m only missing about 6 of their puzzles.  It’s been my lifelong plan to try and solve all of them, starting with the easiest.

Eric Fuller

Eric Fuller is a puzzle box designer, and is in charge of the Cubic Dissection website.  See my earlier post about Cubic Dissection.  The way Cubic Dissection works is that Fuller updates the puzzles for sale every couple of months.  If you’re on the mailing list, you get an email notification.  Boy will you need it.  Most items sell out in days.  Almost all “Stickman” puzzle boxes by Robert Yarger sell out in hours.  I remember seeing an email notification when I started work one day.  I got it a few hours after it was sent.  All of the Yarger boxes were sold out.  These were not cheap either: $525 each!

Fuller had items that he was going to post in his upcoming update.  As of 8/17/09, 1:11 PST, they are still not up for sale yet.  I bought one of the boxes he designed (the “Tier box”) that will be for sale online beginning the next update.  He wasn’t able to complete the finish on it before bringing it to the IPP.  I think he’s feverishly trying to complete the finish on the boxes so he can post his next update.

Bernhard Schweitzer

Bernhard Schweitzer is an interlocking puzzle designer, and in charge of Puzzlewood.  Puzzlewood carries high quality puzzles from a large number of designers.  They are primarily interlocking puzzles.

Derek bought a puzzle from Schweitzer.  I believe it was the Little Maze Box #2, but I’m not sure.  Schweitzer demonstrated it, and Derek was sold.  There are 2 complicated pieces that combine, through a series of rectilinear moves, into a cube.

Tom Jolly

Tom Jolly is a designer of interlocking puzzles.  In the picture above, he was in front of the Cubic Dissection booth, demonstrating how to solve one of the interlocking puzzles that Cubic Dissection will sell beginning their next update.  Derek was leaning toward buying one.  Jolly was not able to get his puzzle together after a few minutes.  I told Derek that if the guy who designed the puzzle is having trouble putting it together, it’s probably a little too difficult for guys like us.  He finally agreed with that logic.

On the other hand, if you’re an interlocking puzzle fan that enjoys a challenge – keep your eyes out for the puzzle at Cubic Dissection!

Allan Boardman

Allan Boardman is a puzzle designer.  While he has designed a few normal-sized puzzle boxes for Bits and Pieces, his specialty is miniature puzzles.  Derek was thoroughly impressed with the craftsmanship and wound up buying a miniature puzzle box.  Not only was the puzzle box small, but the joinery at the corners was also really scaled down.  Boardman is definitely a master craftsman.

I wound up spending most of my money at 3 booths: Eric Fuller/Cubic Dissection, Robert Sandfield, and Perry McDaniel.  I already mentioned Fuller’s “Tier Box.”  The Sandfield brothers, Norman and Robert, are known for their dovetail take-apart puzzles.  The only place I could find them before the IPP were at puzzle auctions, and they fetched high prices.  When I ran into Robert Sandfield’s table, I got one of almost everything on his table.  There is the same situation with McDaniel.  It seems like McDaniel may have gotten his start as the craftsman for the Sandfield puzzles.  He was selling his own recent creations: four small puzzle boxes.  McDaniel’s theme seems to be puzzle boxes that look like pieces of cake.  The puzzle boxes he was selling at the IPP looked like petit fours.  Both Derek and I wound up buying complete sets of all four.

Robert Sandfield’s recent puzzles are crafted by Kathleen Malcolmson, who is his girlfriend.  Absolutely fantastic work.  Malcomson designs puzzles herself, but I didn’t see any at her booth.  I remember seeing some of her wood neckties at her booth.

At this point, I want to mention that it may have been Norman Sandfield that I bought all the puzzles from.  I really should have taken a picture of him with his nametag.  Anyway, the other brother had a few items at his booth, but not as much.