MagicPuzzles.org

I took advantage of the Christmas sale from Bits and Pieces and got a few items.

These included a number of unique, inexpensive boxes:

Bits and Pieces "Mini Book Box"

This box is marketed as being used to house a gift card or money. I was able to open it, but it was sticky and did not open consistently. It has a simpler, different design from their “Original Kamei Book Box”.

Bits and Pieces "Snap Latch Puzzle Box"

This is clever.  Obviously, you don’t just undo the latch.

Bits and Pieces "Secret Rectangle Box"

This has the same mechanism as the “magic” box I mentioned in an earlier post

Bits and Pieces "The MatchBox"

This box was a lot of fun.

Bits and Pieces "wine puzzle box"

This is a version of the standard “magic” puzzle box that is large enough to fit a wine bottle into. I tried putting a wine bottle in, but even though it was relatively thin, it made the box difficult to open and close.

Recent Toys "Writer's Block"

This is an interesting puzzle designed by noted puzzle maker Oskar Van Deventer, made by Recent Toys International in the Netherlands, and distributed by Bits and Pieces. It has 7 pens in the frame, all of which start retracted. When they are all down (in the writing position), the frame can open. The pens’ states are changed using a key that can fit into the frame in one of 4 orientations. I found this puzzle relatively easy to solve and restore to its original state just by trying random moves.

Bits and Pieces "Oskar's Blocks"

This is another puzzle designed by Oskar Deventer. It is an easy 3-piece interlocking puzzle.

Bits and Pieces "Infinity Spiral"

This is a large, sturdy version of a classic puzzle.

I often bring new puzzles in to work so my coworkers can take a crack at it. Here are a couple fellow Mechanical Engineers, Blair LeMire (left) and Craig Johnson. They are working on the MatchBox puzzle box and brass cannon, respectively:

Blair and Craig with puzzles

As you can see, I get quite a few of my puzzles from Bits and Pieces.  The puzzles (as well as most other items from them) are cheap.  Bits and Pieces is often criticized for having poor quality puzzles.  Certainly they are lower quality than expensive premium puzzles running about $50 or more.  This does not mean that they are falling apart or their function is otherwise compromised.

Bits and Pieces also has a very good return policy.  At least they did, before they went out of business sometime in 2008.  I was able to return quite a few puzzles with no hassle.  I bought the puzzles mentioned in this post after they came back into business, so I’m not totally certain this is still the case.

Many of their puzzles are custom designed for them by notable puzzle designers such as Frank Chambers, Rocky Chiaro, Oskar Van Deventer, and Jean-Claude Constantin.  The designers are mentioned on the Bits and Pieces website if this is the case.  Since they mass produce these puzzles, they are much cheaper than if the designer made it himself.  For example, check out the “Brass Treasure Chest” on Bits and Pieces.  It’s $17 (actually, it’s on sale for $13 right now).  When designer Rocky Chiaro had versions he made himself for sale, they were $250.  Chiaro noted on his site that the puzzle is available from Bits and Pieces, and is well made.

The great thing about having cheap puzzles is that you don’t mind your friends playing with them.  If one gets trashed by accident, so what?  You lost 15 bucks or so.  Contrast that with the $425 limited edition IRMO puzzle box I got from Cubic Dissection.  Not many people even get to see that box, which I feel really limits one aspect of its enjoyment.

I enjoy tavern puzzles – well, the easier ones, at least.  The share many of the same designs as the small, cheap wire puzzles made by Daiso and other companies.  Instead of being $1.50 each, like the Daiso puzzles, they go for about $19-$22 each (I think the price went up recently from $18 to $22).  But they’re big and sturdy.  You are unlikely to damage one of these puzzles or  cheat by bending one slightly unless you are really trying hard.

The tavern puzzles that I have are made by Tucker-Jones House.  I recommend this company’s puzzles highly.  The owner, designer and manufacturer is Dennis Sucilsky, who the site indicates is a museum-trained blacksmith.  Most of the puzzles are designed by him, though some of them are traditional designs whose inventor is probably lost to antiquity.

Tucker-Jones has 8 groups of puzzles, each group containing 3-4 different designs.  Each group increases in difficulty, with the possible exception of groups 1 and 2.  This is because group 1 are reproductions of traditional designs, whereas group 2 are basic designs that I assume were conceived by Sucilsky.

I like the idea of progressively more difficult groups of puzzles.  I figure that I can start at the bottom and slowly get better.  I don’t like getting a puzzle that’s so beyond my ability to solve that I can’t get anywhere.

I own and have solved 3 of the 4 group 1 designs.  The 4th one, “Bottoms Up,” is brand new for 2009.  Here are the other three group 1 designs:

Old Shackles.  This is the quintessential tavern puzzle.  Like most of the puzzles, the object is to remove the ring.  Also like most of the puzzles, it looks impossible at first.  It has a very elegant solution.

Iron Heart

Conestoga Playmate.  Actually, I sold this puzzle on eBay.  After solving Old Shackles, this seemed pretty simple.  It turned out my wife got a copy of this a while ago, and this is what is shown above.

Group 2: I haven’t solved any of these 4.  I’m planning on buying them all as a group from Frik-n-Frak (www.frik-n-frak.com) at some point.

Group 3: I only own one of these puzzles, “Tinker’s Bell”, which is shown below:

There is definitely a very significant increase in difficulty from group 1 to group 3.

While I only own “Tinker’s Bell,” I have had a chance to play with and figure out two other puzzles from the group, “Lyon’s Loops” (not shown) and “Traveler’s Woe”.  Traveler’s Woe is shown below, the object being to remove the wavy “shuttle”:

The reason I’ve been able to play with “Traveler’s Woe” and “Lyon’s Loops” is that I bought them as gifts for some relatives of mine that enjoy this type of puzzle.  They are practically indestructible and are packaged in such a way that pulling them out and playing them is unlikely to alter their appearance.

My wife took this picture of me after I had been working on “Traveler’s Woe” on and off for a few days, just moments after I solved it.  I think this is the primary reason most of us buy puzzles in the first place:

My wife says that a good puzzle is one that has me swearing between 3-10 times.  Less than 3 times isn’t challenging enough, and more than 10 is just too *$@# aggravating.

There is another reason I was really satisfied with this puzzle.  It involves a bit of background to tell this story.  I’m a mechanical engineer, and I often bring in new puzzles to pass around to the other engineers.  The “champion” puzzle solver amongst us is Mike Butler:

Usually Mike polishes off the puzzles really fast, which is extremely humbling.  One of the first puzzles I brought in was the YOT (I haven’t described this puzzle in this blog yet).  My wife and I had worked on it for about a week, and were forced to give up and look at the solution.  Mike picked it up and had it open in under a minute.  Many puzzles he solves on the walk back from my office to his.

Mike is not only a Mechanical Engineer, but also a part-time race car mechanic and former machinist.  I think this has a lot to do with his puzzle-solving prowess.

I gave “Traveler’s Woe” to Mike.  He had a lot of computer simulations to run that day, so he had plenty of time to work on the puzzle while the simulations were running.  I heard the characteristic clinking of a tavern puzzle throughout the day.  At the end of the day…he was forced to give up!!!!  I had finally solved a puzzle that Mike hadn’t!!!!

Here are a different class of puzzles, called disentanglement puzzles.   The object is to disentangle one of the parts, often a ring.  A few basic puzzles comprise only 2 pieces which must be taken apart.  Unlike puzzle boxes, everything about the puzzle is visible immediately, so it’s a different type of challenge.  This is my second favorite class of puzzles, behind secret opening puzzles (such as puzzle boxes, locks, and bolts).

Wire and string disentanglement puzzles are generally inexpensive.  Most of the puzzles shown here were purchased from Daiso, a Japanese five-and-dime chain, for $1.50 each.   I think that Daiso’s designs are copies of other puzzles – many of the designs are found in more massive Tucker Jones tavern puzzle versions.  I don’t know how copyright and patents apply to puzzles, but I can’t imagine that the original inventors are too happy to see their designs duplicated.

I had to resort to reading the solution on this one. It turns out that it was manufactured poorly, so you really had to crank on it to solve it. My coworker solved it by bending one of the springs (which I assume you’re not supposed to do). Oh well, that’s what you get for a $1.50 puzzle!

This is a classic buttonhole puzzle. There are 2 of them pictured; they don’t link together. You put it through a buttonhole, and the owner of the shirt has to get it out without cutting it. My coworker Mike Butler introduced me to it, and he made a makeshift version out of a rubber band and pencil. It took me a while to figure out how to solve it. I recall one night drifting off to sleep trying to figure it out. I had the geometry so well memorized that I was manipulating it mentally.

I think this is a pretty old, classic design.

I think this is another old, classic design.

I’ve seen larger, more expensive versions of this floating around.

Another old, classic design.

One of the names for this puzzle is the “wedding vows”. The object is to move one ball over to where the other one is. I had to look up the solution for this one.

This has the same geometry as the Tucker Jones tavern puzzle “Tinkers Bell”.

This has the same geometry as the Tucker Jones tavern puzzle “Double Bypass”.

This final puzzle I got for free from William Strijbos when I bought a puzzle box and a puzzle bolt off of him. It is definitely one of my favorite disentanglement puzzles due to its simple, elegant construction. Of course, the two pieces can be taken apart by applying a little force and bending them slightly, but that’s not the correct solution: