Tucker Jones House hat
Lyndie (my wife) pointed out that I hadn’t blogged about this hat yet. I thought I had, but it turns out I had just added the description the picture in the media library. The hat is a “Thinking Cap” from Tucker-Jones House. They sent it to me after reading my post about their excellent tavern puzzles. Thanks, Dennis and Donna Sucilsky!
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!!!!
