The Visible Burr, designed by Bill Cutler, made by Jerry McFarland, from Cherry, Maple, and Walnut woods.

The Open Cube, designed by Marc van Kreveld and Theo Geerinck, produced by PuzzleWood

The Gear Pyraminx, designed by Timur Evbatyrov, produced by Meffert.

A 2x4x4 Cuboid, made by Olz

A vintage Magellan puzzle, in black and in its package

A Chinese Knot 2x3x3 twisty puzzle

An impossible Penny in a Bottle

A while back I received from Scott Elliott (Thanks, Scott!), a copy of his Screwy Screw - an "impossible object" type puzzle where the objective is to figure out "how did he do that?" In this case, the two nuts spin on or off the bolt in opposite directions! I.e., one spins clockwise to go on and the other spins counterclockwise to go on. Scott discusses this puzzle on his blog, here, here, here, and here.

The Atom Trap - a vintage 1969 dexterity puzzle from the Franco-American Novelty Company of NYC. The transparent hollow egg contains a divider panel having two holes, and is filled with a bunch of styrofoam beads. The objective is to move the beads all to one side of the panel or the other - but the beads acquire a static charge when the egg is shaken, and hilarity ensues as they fail to cooperate.

More interlocking keychain puzzles - Yay!

Keychain Helicopter by Lido	Keychain Covered Truck	Keychain Revolver
Keychain Locomotive (I found a sound one to go with my damaged copy.)	Keychain Wrestler	Keychain Kottage Kar
Keychain Open Car	Keychain Covered Wagon	Keychain Elephant - Mechanical Servants

Other finds from the 2012 NYPP:

D Box - a puzzle construction kit, designed by the Light brothers See www.dboxpuzzle.com		Rudenko Mosaic
I Heart NYPP - a gift from Nick Baxter and Dick Hess - Thanks!	Ethereal Maze - designed by Steve Winter See Steve's Shapeways shop a gift from Brett - Thanks!	PEKE - designed by Kohfuh Satoh made by Saul Bobroff at Here to There Puzzles of Beverly MA. a gift from Saul - Thanks!

Phelan, designed by Alfons Eyckmans made by Maurice Vigouroux, from Walnut from the French online puzzle shop Arteludes.com run by Jean-Baptiste Jacquin and Maurice Vigouroux

Burr in Cage, designed by Ishino made by Maurice Vigouroux, from Padauk from the French online puzzle shop Arteludes.com run by Jean-Baptiste Jacquin and Maurice Vigouroux

Rhombic Star - Arteludes - Thanks!

I finally found a Russian Festival Flower

Colin Gaughran is a woodworker in Lyme, Connecticut. Colin can make any burr pieces, notchable, millable, or even general, using his CNC machine. You can contact him via his eBay sale here. I gave him permission to use my piece ID graphic so you can clearly specify your desired pieces. (I put labels on mine so I can easily identify them.)

Four unusual sequential-movement puzzles from Russia, courtesy of Wil Strijbos. These are all designed and patented by Dr. Valery Rudenko. See www.roscreative.ru [Y]
Rudenko Matroyshka [Y]	Rudenko Doser [Y]	Rudenko Disc [Y]	Rudenko Clips [Y] A clever implementation of the Towers of Hanoi

Four rare vintage interlocking keychain puzzles from Japan, courtesy of Mike van Buiten of the Netherlands.
Steamroller	Trophy Cup	Batmobile	Apollo Command Module and LEM

Knobeltorte A put-together egg puzzle.		River Crossing - Bepuzzled 1997 Canada Get the 3 couples by twos across the river - A man cannot cross with any woman but his wife, and cannot be alone with other women on either bank. A simple and attractive wooden implementation.
Braille sliding piece puzzle	Bushwacky A modern version of Sam Loyd's classic Get Off the Earth vanish puzzle.	Train in Line - Bits & Pieces A nice wooden railroad shunting puzzle with 5 numbered cars.

Keychain Wagon (8 part)	Keychain Showboat	Keychain Heart
Keychain Open Car
Keychain Firetruck	Keychain Battleships, in bags	Keychain Batter

I stickered my purple Mf8 Starminx. As people have noted, it does not turn as smoothly as Tom's (admittedly much more costly) 3D printed version.	I received a black Treasure Chest cube from Mefferts. This hollow, opening cube was designed by Oskar van Deventer - he called it the Gift Cube. [T]
This interlocking keychain puzzle revolver came from Israel. As you can see from the photo of its parts, it is distinct from the two other revolver puzzles I have.
Slocum and Waite identify this Japanese interlocking keychain puzzle as a Diver, but it reminds me of Gigantor.	I found two additional Good Luck Horseshoe/Horsehead puzzles.

Le Bracelet de Cleopatre A vintage French boxed wire puzzle. I've been looking for this one for a while!

Quickstep - designed by Jeff Namkung A Level 11.5.3.3 4x4x4 cube. Printed via Shapeways and dyed by Richard Gain

The Moscow Puzzles - Boris Kordemsky

The Badge and The Square Two Magnetic Puzzle Up Games, dexterity challenges copyright 1979 by Reiss Games Inc. Each comes with a magnetic wand, to be used to correctly stack the steel balls inside the plastic domes.

DaYan Bermuda Cube Neptune (black)

Mf8 Master Kilominx (solid colors)

DaYan Gem IV Deepcut (black)

Another Tough Puzzle (Triangles) - Great American Puzzle Factory

Keychain interlocking puzzle car (Germany)

Keychain interlocking puzzle Circuit Breaker (France)

Keychain interlocking puzzle Duck w/ Seaman's cap

Keychain interlocking puzzle Hedgehog (Germany)

Say Cheese - Popular Playthings A rolling-block route-finding puzzle, designed by Eric Harshbarger.

Pentomino Puzzles by Eric Harshbarger

4 Uni Cubes - idea by Marcel Gillen, Program by Georges Phillippe IPP18 (Tokyo) exchange puzzle from Luc De Smet Includes 7 plastic polycube pieces - the O, L, and T tetracubes, and four pentacubes - two mirror-image pairs N1 and N2, and S1 and S2. Comes packed in the box in a 2x4x4 arrangement. Five challenges - you can remove each of the four pentacube pieces in turn and with the remaining six pieces make a 3x3x3 cube; also, find an alternative to the 2x4x4 solid.

Tanacube Too Small - Oskar van Deventer The Tanacube Too is Oskar's solution to a challenge originated by Peter Rasmussen and Wei Zhang, to create a cubic puzzle having the classic Tangram Square dissection appearing on each face, and meeting other criteria. You can read about the challenge at www.tanacube.com, also at George Miller's Puzzle Palace website, and in CFF #65, November 2004, in the article Tangram Cubes: A Collaborative Effort, by Peter Rasmussen and Wei Zhang. George Miller had offered 3-D printed copies of Oskar's Tanacube Too (at $550), but George has shut his online shop. Oskar kindly created a Shapeways model of Tanacube Too at a more reasonable price. Oskar then created the smaller, less expensive, Tanacube Too Small shown here. Bill Darrah created the first solution to the challenge, called the Tanacube. You can see Bill Darrah's Tanacube at George Miller's Puzzle Palace website, at Bernhard Schweitzer's Puzzlewood website, and in Neil's Puzzling Parts blog entry of May 23 2011 (California Puzzle Party). The wooden versions were made in the Pelikan workshop and originally cost $350. Both Tanacube and Tanacube Too were entered in the IPP 2004 Design Competition, but neither won an award - they were up against some stiff competition!
Hungarian Olympic Rings	Some puzzles from SmartGames, including Pirates Hide & Seek, GoGetter Cat & Mouse, and GoGetter Prince & Dragon.	Keychain interlocking puzzle Oil Can	Keychain interlocking puzzle Legal Coffee Bean
The Rhombic-18, by David Pitcher. [T] [Y] [S] This is a twisty puzzle in the shape of a Rhombic Dodecahedron. All faces turn, and all 4-fold corners turn. It is similar to Matt Shepit's Rua puzzle [T], which is also a face-turning RD, but does not allow vertex turns of any sort.

Washer Cylinder, number 12, from William Strijbos A secret-opening container. Shown in comparison with Wil's Aluminum Cylinder Box, and Iwahiro's AlCyl. Reviewed by Oli and Kevin.

My 2011 Christmas Presents from the Karakuri Creation Group:

Can you tell which artisan crafted each one?

It's a Hardly by Rocky Chiaro A fairly simple and beautifully crafted brass puzzle model of an early Harley Knucklehead motor.

The Tokyo Puzzles - Kobon Fujimura - Ed. by Martin Gardner

Casse-Tete et Jeux Magiques by Daniel Picon

The Twentieth Century Standard Puzzle Book - 1907 Routledge, London - A. Cyril Pearson

The Magician's Own Book - 1862 - Arnold, George (1834-1865) & Cahill, Frank I don't have a physical copy, but this book can be downloaded from www.archive.org.

I found some additional Grandpa's Wonder Soap edgematching puzzle pieces:    Now I just have to figure out which pieces comprise a puzzle!

This a modern example of a Chinese Magic Mirror:    When sunlight hits its polished brass reflective face (opposite to that shown) properly, one can see an image of the IPP Burr puzzle logo. The unique production technique was invented some 2000 years ago in China and entails more than ten complicated procedures.

The Cannon Ball Puzzle, issued by Skor-Mor in 1973. Seven pieces of five balls each can be assembled into a side-5 pyramid, in addition to other shapes. Despite the credit to "John Bird, inventor" on the box, this was invented by Michael Reilly. You can read an interview with Michael at Eric Shamblen's PuzzleMonster website. Michael attempted to produce a remake via a Kickstarter project, but it didn't get funded. However, you can find a remake at Creative Crafthouse. Reilly is also the inventor of the Oops and Oops Again ball pyramid puzzles, as well as the game Archieball.

Additional interlocking keychain puzzles!

Keychain interlocking puzzle Robot	Keychain interlocking puzzle Destroyer			Keychain interlocking puzzle Elephant
Bartissol Man
Blue Horse (Dutch, vinyl)			BP Longlife Oil	Elephant
Spunky the Dog	Revolver (missing pieces)	Motorcycle Cop	Locomotive (cab is damaged)	Jeep (windshield frame is damaged)

Check out some new websites of interest:

• Kelly Snache's Woodlockplans.com
• Arteludes.com - Jean-Baptiste Jacquin and Maurice Vigouroux
• Ikoso Kits
• Mazes by Nebagram
• From Puzzles to Programming
• Online copies of the classic Infocom New Zork Times, and Status Line
• LaserExact
• Maarten Steurbaut's Lego Creations
• Het Puzzelwarenhuis
• Rompicapo in legno
• MathLove
• Peter Donovan Antiques
• Bram Cohen's solution to the Gear Shift puzzle

Madachy's Mathematical Recreations by Joseph S. Madachy, (c) 1966, 1979 - pub. by Dover, NY.   - nice sections on geometric dissections, and chessboard placement problems.

Designer Colin James very kindly sent me a copy of his Qboid puzzle.     It offers over 1000 challenges at four different levels. 12 cubes, with patterned faces. When properly arranged, the patterns form digits and letters. Entered in the 2009 IPP Design Competition. Thanks, Colin!

A couple of Tom Jolly designs from the latest offering by Eric Fuller:

The Rattle Box, designed by Tom Jolly, made by Eric Fuller from Quilted Ambrosia Maple, Leopardwood, Padauk, Walnut, and Canarywood. A 5x5x5 cube with a hollow interior containing a 2x2x2 cube with one unit missing.

The Ribbon Puzzle, designed by Tom Jolly, made by Eric Fuller from Chakte Cok and Zebrawood - six pieces that form the 3-piece burr shape.

On Sunday Dec. 11 I visited David at Eureka Puzzles. It's always a blast talking puzzles with David, and his shop is well-stocked with an excellent selection, and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff! I picked up a few nice items:

First and foremost, I found Wausau '83, a burr designed by Bill Cutler and made by Jerry McFarland, from Walnut, Cherry, and Maple. Bill says this is the best of the Wausau series, and it requires 11 moves to remove the first piece.

David recommended Tridio Twist! by FatBrain Toy Co. Three mutable pieces and 48 pattern challenges. Designed by Marijn van Herel and Eliane Scharten.

Modest Hexominoes by Dr. Richard Hess (IPP17) Place all 20 pieces so that each hexomino shape contains five identical pieces. Includes a booklet with 100 additional problems to maximally cover polyomino shapes with congruent tiles.

The Massai packing puzzle from Siebenstein Spiele, 2011. Pack the 5 identical L-shaped tetrominoes in the tray.

The Revenge of the Nails puzzle, by Rick Irby.

Additional twisties:

An inexpensive remake of the Dino Cube, by "SmaZ" I got the version with SmaZ' "hollow" stickers, signed by him, and also a version with the remake of the original "Dino" stickers. The puzzle turns well!

A four-layer "Leesho" puzzle.

Quintillions, a nice Pentominoes set, by Kadon. This product launched Kadon in 1979.

This is a vintage Rubik's Domino (2x3x3) - this one has the spindle mechanism.

A vintage boxed set of wooden Kumiki puzzles, marked "Made in Japan" but with no other provenance. Includes: a barrel, a caged ball burr, a truncated cube, a six-piece burr, a "crystal," a ball, a pistol, a battleship, a dragonfly, and a small pagoda.

Codebreaker - The History of Secret Communication - by Stephen Pincock	Mf8 Starminx II - in translucent purple This is a mass-produced version of what the twisty forum knows as the Starminx I, previously custom-made by Aleh [T] , Drew Cormier [T] , and Tom van der Zanden, in mini [T], and larger size [T] . (Mf8 called their Dino-Dodecahedron a Starminx I, hence the naming confusion.)	Keychain Space Blaster Guns
A vintage sliding piece puzzle advertising Silverthorn's of Orfordville, Wisconsin. This is an instance of the classic design known as Ma's Puzzle, and while the related Dad's Puzzle has been used extensively for advertising, this is the first time I have seen Ma's puzzle used.
Two members of the Wausau burr series by Bill Cutler - '82 and '84.

Some twisties from hknowstore:

IQube blue - 1.2.5 www.hanayamatoys.co.jp	IQube red - 1.2.5 www.hanayamatoys.co.jp	Tuttminx Classic [T]   www.verypuzzle.com
Ayi's 4.5.5 ayistoy.com	Dioctipoid 1 www.dioctipoid.com	Dioctipoid 2 www.dioctipoid.com

The White Eagle Mobil Gas puzzle, and a metal six-piece burr: 

Some holiday reading material - books on puzzles, mathematics, and computation:

The Curse of the Voynich, by Nick Pelling, is a probing look into the history of the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript. Dated to the 1400s, the manuscript was discovered in 1912 by the antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid Voynich in an old trunk in a villa near Rome. Once thought to have been created by Roger Bacon, it has resisted all attempts at decipherment, and its true provenance remains shrouded in mystery. Its baffling text and strange illustrations continue to fascinate researchers. You can find purchase info about Pelling's exposé at Compelling Press. Check out Nick's website, Cipher Mysteries, for discussion about other uncracked historical ciphers.	Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Puzzles, by Ian Stewart	Famous Puzzles of Great Mathematicians, by Miodrag S. Petkovic	Puzzles and Programming, by Fadi Jabr
The Greatest Puzzles of All Time, by Matthew J. Costello	Mathematics From the Birth of Numbers, by Jan Gullberg	The Curious Book of Mind-Boggling Teasers, Tricks, Puzzles & Games, by Charles Barry Townsend	The World's Biggest Puzzle Book, by Charles Barry Townsend

The three classic wooden vintage secret-opening puzzles Takitapart (U.S. Patent 2181116 - Boyle 1939), Pick-A-Peg (U.S. Patent 2469364 - Boyle 1949), and Tri-'N'-Do-It (U.S. Patent 2207778 - Boyle 1940), all invented by John D. Boyle, were issued in this boxed set, called the Masterpiece Puzzles.

Here is a plastic interlocking keychain puzzle Knight:

Our electricity was out for over a week due to the storm on October 29th - 30th 2011. This is a shot of the trees in our back yard, bowed (with a few broken limbs) due to the load of snow on them. We lost power on Saturday night the 29th and it wasn't restored until the evening of Monday November 7th. The unseasonable accumulations of about 12" of heavy, wet snow onto trees that had not yet fully shed their leaves brought down many trees and limbs large and small and wreaked havoc with the above-ground utility lines across the northeast. The extent of the damage was unbelievable - nearly every street had issues. Fortunately, we had the option to stay with a kindly nearby relative who had power (thanks, Pat!), and the temperatures were not frigid enough to cause pipes to freeze in the unheated house.

This is the XMATRIX Quadrus puzzle, developed in 2009 by artist and designer Jeremy Goode and issued by www.xmatrix.co.uk You can see Goode's European patent GB2472581(A) online. The Quadrus retails for £20 - Jeremy kindly sent me a copy to try. Thanks, Jeremy! Quadrus is a large (140 x 140 x 30mm) and attractive traditional rolling-ball multilevel maze in a gold-tinted transparent acrylic case, nicely packaged in a cardboard slipcase tray that shows off the ambigrammatic XMATRIX logo. Quadrus is also available in a blue tint, and has a smaller cubic sister puzzle called Cubus. In Quadrus, the maze network is defined by three layers of internal latticework structures and interstices - one lattice on each large face, and a third suspended between them, with an empty thickness between pairs of adjacent layers - giving an overall thickness of 5 layers between the "floor" and "ceiling" faces. The walls in a layer are 4mm wide, and the pathways between walls are 8mm wide. Walls and pathways in a layer are arranged on a 34 x 34 virtual grid of 4mm x 4mm squares. The ball occupies a 2x2x2 space within the lattice. The maze contains a central 12x12 square compartment - a white panel with a stylized 'X' cutout separates the compartment into a gold-framed side and a silver-framed side. Each side of the compartment has a single entrance into the maze. To solve Quadrus, one must navigate the ball from the central gold-framed compartment to the central silver-framed compartment on the opposite side, by tilting the puzzle and guiding the ball through the maze. I have found that the occasional ill-planned tilt can send the ball somewhat further than one intends, adding a dexterity dilemma to the already-considerable routefinding challenge. This style of maze is similar to the Boston Subway puzzle designed by Oskar van Deventer for the 2006 IPP Exchange. (See Boston Subway at Oskar's website.) Boston Subway is a much smaller puzzle, but also comprises a "sandwich" of 5 layers of transparent acrylic, through which one navigates an internal metal ball from point A to B and back. Unlike Quadrus, Boston Subway requires the solver to use an included magnetic wand to move the ball through the maze. As interesting as Oskar's Boston Subway puzzle is, I find the Quadrus more convenient to hold and manipulate, and it is far easier to see and keep track of where the ball is. While less portable, it is more engaging to the casual puzzler. For the 2009 IPP, Oskar also designed Next Floor. (See Next Floor at Oskar's website.) Produced from laser-cut MDF, this maze is formed from 5 grooved layers with four interstices. A version of Next Floor is marketed by Bits and Pieces, but unfortunately folks reported that the layers can be loose and the ball can squeeze through unintended paths or even fall out, spoiling the fun. No such issues plague the robust, high-quality Quadrus puzzle. I found an older seven-layer version (in an eBay auction). Unfortunately it included no documentation and I am unware of its provenance. You can read some reviews of the XMATRIX puzzles here, here, here, and here. My own impressions? When solving a maze, I do not typically sit with the puzzle tilting it to and fro. I manipulate and study the puzzle enough to systematically create an accurate representation of the network "on paper" and then exhaustively map it out. The physical object itself becomes somewhat unimportant and is usually stored away. With the XMATRIX Quadrus, however, two things are true: It is just as much a pleasure to hold and play with the physical object as it is to intellectually solve the maze, and this is one maze puzzle that will be left out for others to enjoy rather than being put away and forgotten.

The IPP 29 Souvenir Book has finally arrived! Also picked up The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers, by the Grabarchuk family.

Some puzzles by craftsman Colin Gaughran, who has a shop in Lyme, Connecticut - a Chuck Burr, an Altekruse, and some six-piece burr pieces - in Maple and Walnut.

Chuck Burr - Colin Gaughran

Altekruse - Colin Gaughran

Colin Gaughran made this set of 12 burr pieces, from Maple. The included pieces can be used to make at least four interesting burrs, including Bill Cutler's #306, CINTVY, FILTVY, and FGINOY. The pieces are: 52, 359/615, 871, 911, 928, 943, 975, 960/992, 1007, and 1024.

Leesho (Liso)	A set of burr puzzles in Maple and Walnut, from Colin - a Woodchuck, an Altekruse, and a #306.	Rubik's LED Flashlight 1x1x3
Equal-7 - issued by Recent Toys Invented by Vladimir Krasnoukhov Tilt the cube to slide the dice - four successively harder objectives - make the total on all sides: 10, 11, 12, 7. Cast Donuts - Hanayama designed by Vesa Timonen
Keychain VW Beetle	Fritz and Paul A version of the "Which is Larger" optical puzzle made in Germany "New! Great! Amazing! The droll Piccolos or the enigmatic twins Wins every bet very amusing!" D.R.G.M. Reg. i. a. K. - Staat Franz Wieland, Berlin S. 59, Camphausenstr. 25.	Keychain Diagonal Burr

Interlocking keychain puzzle Tanks	Traveling Salesman tangle - Rolfs - IPP31	T+3 - designed by Hiroshi Yamamoto The 3 pieces can be arranged to form four different pentominoes, including a T. A really nice dissection! This won a Jury Honorable Mention at the 2011 IPP Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. Thanks, Brett!
Bindu Truss - one in a series of "Baffler" puzzles designed by Chris Yates and issued by Ceaco. Thanks, Brett!
Rubik's Puzzle (assembly)	Out of Time - Lambert Bright - IPP31 Free the Cuckoo from the Clock	Sudoku 3D Ball - 22 Advance Thanks, Brett!
A vintage Crown interlocking keychain puzzle, issued by Bell. With its original card!

Some new puzzles from Creative Crafthouse (Thanks, Dave!):

8 L-ements - designed by Rick Eason	Fisherman's Dilemma	Get My Goat
Perfect 10	Mindreader Cards (125 set)	Mindreader Cards in box
Alpha Snake 9 - designed by Ken Irvine	Math Snake 9 - designed by Ken Irvine	Lucky Seven (I solved it!)

An order from Meffert's:

Venus Cube - black designed by Evgeniy Grigoriev

3x3x9 - black

3x3x9 Roadblock I - black

An order from hknowstore:

Super Dipyramid (4x4x4) - black	Windmill Cube - black	Crazy Tetrahedron - Standard
Ingot (3x3x3) - Red, Yellow, and Green
Master Trajber's Octahedron (4x4x4) - colored pieces
"New Spring" 2x2x2, clear version, tinted pieces version, and bandaged 3x3x3 version (internal colors)

A gift from my brother - the "Vegas Baby" cube from SiamMandalay: 

The World's Best Paper Puzzles - Slocum and Botermans
Three vintage puzzles...
Nice Cubes, in original package Copyright 1968 Funtastic, Div. of KMS Industries, Inc., Alexandria, VA.	The 14 Puzzle - Milton Bradley	Stumpa 2 (A plastic diagonal star)

A couple of puzzles from Steve Strickland's new website:

This is the Q Burr, designed by Jim Gooch, made by Steve, from Rosewood. Four pieces, one of which is a cube.

Six Pack, designed by Jim Gooch and made by Steve, from Mahogany, Red Oak, Padauk, Bubinga, Walnut, and Pecan. Six interlocking pieces.

Keychain puzzles...

Bomber keychain puzzle

Burr keychain puzzle

Teapot keychain puzzle This one has an actual screw thread.

More details on new puzzles from IPP 31...

This is the Dice Box, designed by George Bell [S], with input from Scott Elliott, and printed by Scott. It's not overly difficult, but I think the printed live hinges are cool.
Assorted cubes - Richard Gain You can find these at Richard's Shapeways shop, and sometimes he has dyed copies for sale at his Etsy shop. Unless otherwise noted, these are designed by Gain. I picked up (from the top, clockwise): Superstrings, which won a Jury First Prize at the 2011 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, Angle-C, Elevator designed by Jos Bergmans, and Roll Up! Roll Up!.	Suits Edgematch I found this at Der Verrückte Laden, a puzzle shop in Berlin.	Turtle's Heart - Kotani
MT5T (Make the Five Tetrominoes) - Mission 1 designed by MINE (Mineyuki Uyematsu) A similar version won a Jury First Prize at the 2011 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition	Ampelmann - Roman Götter Fit the Ampelmann figures into the black case so a single figure is showing in each circle. The clear piece is a hint - it shows the shape of the cavity inside the case. Simple, eh? These figures are the old East Berlin crosswalk signal symbols - one of the few vestiges of Communist rule that Berlin citizens want to keep. Read more about " "Speciation and Competition in Berlin's Traffic Lights."	Prismazul - Logika
Two Silhouette Puzzles designed by Diniar Namdarian- make a Pigeon, and make a Dog.
Four in a Frame - a two-sided four-piece tray packing puzzle based on a triangular grid, designed by Markus Götz
Mond oder Kreuz Make both a crescent moon, then a Greek cross from the pieces.	Tromino Trails - Pavel Curtis	Creeping Block - exchange from Dirk Weber Thanks, Dirk!
Reunification - Bram Cohen IPP 31 - octahedron - Vinco Maze Medal - designed by Oskar van Deventer Comparison to an earlier version made by George Miller Figurenmatch
Six piece caged burr	Four-piece red weave	Quartet in F - Stewart Coffin
Several new tanglement puzzles: Schlitten - Constantin, Rings with red cord (?), The Squared Fish - A. Jacob, Batwing and Batwing 2 - PuzzleMaster, Puzzle Up Nails - Rick Irby, IPP 31 Gift - Markus Götz, Hybrid 55 - Richard Hess

A couple of eBay wins - Squaring the Circle, and a group of tray packings:

Some new puzzles from CubicDissection:

The much-copied Digigrams, designed by Martin Watson. Made by Eric Fuller, from Grandillo, Walnut, and laser-cut acrylic.

Boards and Sticks with Frame, designed by Gregory Benedetti. (See this design at Ishino's site.) Made by Eric Fuller, from Wenge, Bubinga, and Leopardwood.

Zauberflote, designed by Gregory Benedetti. (See this design at Ishino's site.) Made by Eric Fuller, from Yellowheart and laser-cut acrylic.

Time for a few more interlocking keychain puzzles, inspired by Slocum and Waite's new Compendium...

This Old-style Telephone Interlocking Keychain Puzzle was designed by John Flower in 1952 and issued by the UK company Bell. It has six pieces and assembly requires several pieces to be moved back and forth in sequence, which is not typical for keychain puzzle mechanisms. I like this one a lot!
This interlocking keychain puzzle is Spunky the Dog, patented by Irving Hartley Steinhardt in 1953 (2651522). According to Jerry Slocum, Spunky was Steinhardt's pet dog. The six letters in S-P-U-N-K-Y are embossed, one in each of the six pieces. Spunky, and other dogs, have appeared in several forms, including one having a larger left ear (2nd from left).
This interlocking keychain puzzle ball was patented by Irving Hartley Steinhardt in 1939 (2178190). This patent number is embossed on the hollow inside of the green key piece of the example with the chain. The six letters W-H-A-L-E-N are embossed, one in each of the six pieces. Grover Whalen was president of the New York World Fair Corporation, and helped run the 1939 fair - for which Steinhardt's Trylon Perisphere puzzle was issued. This puzzle ball contains virtually the same pieces as the Trylon Perisphere, except the Trylon key piece has been truncated and become part of the ball. According to Slocum and Waite, this is the first keychain puzzle, issued by the Helenhart Novelty Company of New York City. Steinhardt also patented the horseshoe-shaped clip, in 1942 (D132116), and another type of retension device having a cord, in 1944 (2361069).
Keychain Dumptruck	Keychain Truck	Keychain Elephant

This is a Rex Rhombic Dodecahedron (RRD), designed by William Kretschmer. It was announced on the TwistyPuzzles forums, and is available from Will's Shapeways shop. As Will says, the turning is nearly flawless. It's about the same size as the LanLan 4x4x4 RD. This is a great puzzle!	Peri Spiele's 19-piece n-iamond packing	Penguins on Ice - SmartGames - Raf Peeters Raf has created another great multi-challenge puzzle, this time based on Pentominoes. But instead of requiring 12 pieces, Penguins on Ice uses only five - each of which can assume multiple shapes! Thanks, Raf!
A set of three assembly puzzles from Japan - Garigari Grapefruit (easy), and Garigari Soda (normal), Garigari Cola (hard) Made in China and distributed by Hanayama
Redi 3x3x3 - Eric Vergo This puzzle turns at its vertices like Oskar van Deventer's Redi Cube, plus like a 3x3x3. Announced on the TwistyPuzzles forums, and available at Eric's Shapeways shop. Very clever, Eric!
IPP Burr - Mr. Puzzle Australia	Oskar's Gear Shift - Meffert	Capzule
Die Welle (The Wave) - Constantin	456 Burr Almost identical to the Arjeu 456 Burr	Collection of Martin Gardner's Scientific American Mathematical Games columns on CD

Eric Vergo made this Elite Skewb for me [T]. It's instance #1! This is the order-3 vertex-turning cube - a Skewb combined with a Master Skewb.	Meffert's is offering the mass-produced Curvy Copter created by Tom van der Zanden. Tom's Curvy Copter has been very popular as a custom-produced 3D printed puzzle, and is now available at one tenth the price. I bought the black and white "twins" pair. The Curvy Copter functions like a Helicopter cube, but it exposes central edge pieces that must be correctly oriented, making it a more difficult challenge.	Instant Insanity II - by Winning Moves. This reminds me of the Pakovalec (aka Xylinder).
A vintage wire tanglement lot. The top middle puzzle looks like the Folley patent # 1102576 of July 1914. Bottom middle is a Chilian.	A vintage Trio puzzle. See U.S. Patent # 2162278 Galeazzo, June 1939.	A vintage square wire tanglement puzzle (pair). From another puzzle collection. Similar in design to a Ryede puzzle I've got.
Eric Fuller created a reproduction and two new versions of the vintage wooden trick dovetail Das Wunder Puzzle. I bought a copy of his mechanism #1. It's made from Carolina Ash, Black Walnut, and Sapelle. Similar to The Little Giant Puzzle, shown in Slocum & Botermans' 1986 Puzzles Old and New on page 147, and said to be on sale in 1896.

Some new solo challenges from Thinkfun:

Tilt invented by Vesa Timonen and Timo Jokitalo Tilt the board to slide green, but not the blue, pieces into the central hole. Every move must move all pieces in the tilt direction as far as each can go unobstructed. Fun!

Pathwords invented by Derrick Niederman For each of 40 challenges of graduated difficulty, fit a subset of the supplied transparent pieces to completely cover the field of letters such that each piece covers one word that runs backwards or forwards.

Solitaire Chess invented by Vesa Timonen For each of 60 challenges of graduated difficulty, successively capture pieces using legal chess moves until only one remains.

 

From 7/7 through 7/10, spent a nice extended weekend in Québec City. Also visited Quechee Gorge in Vermont on the way up. (We took the photo above left from atop the Observatoire de la Capitale. Above right, looking down into the 165 foot chasm of the Quechee Gorge, was taken from center span of the bridge on Rt. 4 in Vermont, which bounced disconcertingly each time a vehicle passed by.) While in Québec, I made time to visit two nice toy shops where I picked up some puzzles - Benjo (thanks, Allan!), and L'Imaginaire (thanks, Daniel!). Benjo is within walking distance from the main tourist area, and stocks many of the logic puzzles from SmartGames, Foxmind, and Popular Playthings, as well as a great variety of quality toys for kids of all ages. L'Imaginaire is further afield, located in a mall easily accessible from downtown via bus, and caters more to the anime and D&D crowd, but stocks a full line of Hanayama puzzles, PuzzleMaster tanglements, and a few other puzzles.

Troy Extra Muros from Smart Games, designed by Raf Peeters. I really like this one!	IQ Twist from SmartGames, by Raf Peeters	Booster packs for two great puzzle games from SmartGames - North Pole Camouflage, and Safari Hide & Seek
Tangramino, Equilibrio, and Architecto books from Foxmind - I can use the pieces in the Cliko set I already have, to try many new challenges.
Oops! - from Foxmind	Popular Playthings has issued a nice version of Eric Harshbarger's Digits in a Box	Cube Conundrum from House of Marbles Purchased at the Vermont Toy Museum in Quechee Gorge Village.
The Avenger burr from PuzzleMaster	Meffert's Pillowed Holey Skewb, in black, from PuzzleMaster

Three new twisty puzzles: two-layer and three-layer "Grimace" puzzles, and the Mf8 Helicopter Dodecahedron, in black:

A tangle from Hong Kong: 

A Mini Mixup Cube by "PuzzleMaster6262" [T] [S] (also see a version by Oskar van Deventer [S] )

The idea of a 3x3x3 cube which is able to interchange edges and centers via 45 degree turns of its middle slices seems to have originated with Sergey Makarov back in 1984. [T]

The "No. 1 White City Puzzle Savings Bank A Barrel of Money" was issued by Nicol & Co. of Chicago, and is a souvenir of the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

The bottom of mine seems to have been painted red. This is in fact not the only time I have seen one of these vintage White City Barrel No. 1 puzzles with traces of red paint on it (for example, on the handtruck). Does anyone know if these were actually red when originally issued?

The Smooth Operator is the latest design, for 2011, from Tucker-Jones - I purchased this one at Necker's, a great toy store in Simsbury, Connecticut:

Here is a fairly simple tanglement, but in a fairly large size, called Troika:  

The Quadlock 1 is an interlocking burr cuboid puzzle made by Jerry McFarland from Mahogany, Walnut, and Maple, and designed by him in 1992. Purchased from Jerry. It has 19 pieces and is difficult to take apart. It is beautifully finished! You can read reviews here, here, and here.

Kelly "Snake" Snache and Robert "Stickman" Yarger are two talented puzzlebox craftsmen who have teamed up to create this Tea Box Puzzle, housed in an actual wooden Tea Box. A tea bag tag seems to be hanging out one side. Hmmm...		Here is a wooden Kumiki Trolley by Shackman:
From Rick Irby, two tanglement puzzles - Impossible, and the Nails Puzzle Ring:
Keychain Motorcycle Cop (yellow)	Keychain Showboat (orange)	Keychain Clown	Keychain Cat

Here is William's Cross, designed by Wil Strijbos. Two aluminum pieces with a clever hidden locking mechanism. Courtesy of John Devost.

Here is a new Limited Edition Blue DaYan Gem III. [T] It is a shallow-truncated octahedron where the vertices and faces turn. Independently designed by Daqing Bao, also appeared as the custom "Concept 11." [T] Shown compared to the DaYan Gem, which is a truncated edge-turning octahedron.

I received one of Robert Sandfield's IPP30 Locked Draw Puzzle Boxes, made by Kathleen Malcolmson. Here it is shown open, since that is the state it remains in until one solves it!

Various new acquisitions:

A set of three Star Wars themed Pizza Hut (South American) promotional puzzles from 1997 - the Death Star (interlocking/assembly); Han Solo frozen in Carbonite (sliding piece); and R2D2 fixing C3PO (dexterity):		A vintage Shackman "Dice" assembly puzzle, with instructions:
Keychain Fish	Keychain Dino in package	Keychain Cowboy (blue)	Keychain Camel Rider (green)
Keychain Slipper	King Tut's Pyramid for the Puzzle Master - Milton Bradley This is a version of the Towers of Hanoi puzzle.		Vintage promotional puzzle Which is Larger?
Vintage The Game of Fifteen		Adam's Block Puzzle Senior and Locked Blocks

"The Rainbow Puzzle" - a vintage dexterity challenge by Montauk Specialties Co. of Chicago Ill., with its original package; also a robust metal tanglement puzzle - a variation of the "Wit's End" type, where the cord has been looped through itself (an eBay find):

Some more interlocking keychain puzzles:

This past weekend on Saturday 5/14, Brett hosted a puzzle dinner in Manhattan. It was a fun get-together, and I spent a while chatting with Ken Irvine, George Hart, Stan Leeb, and other puzzlers. I picked up a Creative Crafthouse 18-piece Burr No. 2 in a trade with Ken, to add to my collection of 18-piece burrs. Brett got me two Marusenko Spheres - shiny! And when I got home, there was a Dino Skewb by TomZ waiting for me!

Check out:

• cclx.webs.com - (English translation) - an impressive catalogue of twisty polyhedra diagrams
• Jake Rueth's Blog
• Gabriels - some creepy Berrocal-like "toys for melancholics"
• puzzleguru.com

Three more nice wooden puzzles from Brian Menold at Wood Wonders:
Barrel Puzzle - Menold	Mine's Cube in Cage - Menold	Pentominoes in Cage - Menold

Keychain puzzles:

From King's, a smaller version of "Kwazy Quilt." In BurrTools, you can model the Kwazy Quilt pieces on a triangular grid as hexagons, each having from one to six triangular points. BurrTools reports 3594 solutions, but I suspect this includes some symmetrical positions. I found the particular solution shown by hand.

Three puzzles from Eric Fuller's latest run:

Five Sticks 28 designed by Stéphane Chomine, made by Eric Fuller, from Walnut (frame) and Gum (burrs). 28 moves to remove the first piece.

4 in 2 designed by Stéphane Chomine, made by Eric Fuller, from Walnut (frame) and Mahogany (burrs). 14 moves to remove the first piece, 17 for the second.

3 Sticks Trapped designed by Stéphane Chomine, made by Eric Fuller, from Walnut (frame) and Yellowheart (burrs). Level 12.6.8.

Here are two nice wooden puzzles from Brian Menold at Wood Wonders: Vinco 4 Piece Burr

Coffin's 4 Piece Cube When you order, expect to receive a random wood selection, unless you specify and are willing to wait.

The mass-produced Mosaic Cube issued by Meffert was designed by Oskar van Deventer and originally available from Oskar's Shapeways Shop as the Fadi Cube. It is a vertex-turning, order-4 cube, related to Okamoto's Lattice Cube.

There has been some controversy about the stability of the Mosaic Cube [T] and Oskar designed a new spherical core.

I bought a black spherical core from Shapeways and modified a Mosaic Cube to swap out the standard core. To access the screws and disassemble the puzzle, one must first remove the corner caps, which are glued on and have three small legs that fit into sockets in the underlying stem piece. An Exacto knife, used with care, is helpful to pry up the corners. One or more legs might break when a cap is removed, however this is not catastrophic - you can use "Stik Tak," "Fun Tak," or a similar product to re-attach the corners so they remain easily removable. After swapping in the spherical core and adjusting the screw/spring tensions, I find the puzzle very stable, playable, and enjoyable. The Mosaic Cube is not overly difficult to solve. It is similar to a Dino or Rainbow Cube, as one might expect. The steps I employ are: Orient the corners - they are fixed in place so this step is trivial. Once the corners are oriented, the correct face colors are evident. Solve the small square centers. These centers are attached in pairs - a single piece provides a square center to two adjacent faces. There are 12 such pieces and they can be solved in the same way as Dino or Rainbow Cube edge pieces - intuitively. Solve the large edge pieces. There are 24 of them.

I have three algorithms that sometimes prove useful. To describe the algorithms and their effects, we have to agree on a notation for the Mosaic Cube - here is what I use. I hold the cube at an angle and look at it edge-on - the up and down faces are held parallel to the floor, and an edge is towards you. I label the 8 vertices using two letters describing their position: UF, DF, UR, DR, UL, DL, UB, DB - as shown in the image (DB isn't visible). Any of the 24 large edge pieces can be identified by giving the labels of the two corners it lies between, with the adjacent corner first. For example, the large edge piece on the bottom in front would be DFUF while the piece above it would be UFDF. A move is a twist of a vertex by 120 degrees either clockwise or counterclockwise from the point of view of looking directly at the vertex. A move can encompass just a corner and the 3 large edge pieces surrounding it, or those pieces plus the further "layer" including 3 more large edge pieces, and 3 center dual-pieces (accounting for six small square centers). I will symbolize the latter move, clockwise, using the relevant corner name - e.g. UF means twist the UF corner and the two layers surrounding it 120 degrees clockwise. UF' symbolizes the corresponding counterclockwise move. I will use the lowercase name of the corner to symbolize the "smaller" move of just twisting the corner and the 3 large edges surrounding it - e.g. uf and uf' for counterclockwise. To 3-cycle DFUF => URUF => URDR, use: UF' ur UF ur' To twist just the single UF corner piece 120 degrees clockwise, use: (UR uf UR' uf)*2 To 3-cycle the far edges about the UF corner clockwise - i.e. DFUF => ULUF => URUF, use: ur UF' ur' UF' ur UF' ur' I figured that one out myself :-) - I do a setup (ur UF' ur'), then use the previous 3-cycle UF' ur UF ur', then undo the setup (ur UF ur'), which strung together looks like: (ur UF' ur') UF' ur UF ur' (ur UF ur') The adjacent ur' ur near the end cancels out, and the resulting adjacent UF UF simplifies to UF' giving the concise 7-step algorithm.

Hong Kong puzzle designer and craftsman Smaz has mass-produced his Dino Cylinder design [T] [T]. His original "hollow" stickers make for a beautiful puzzle! It is even shipped in a nice black velour drawstring bag.	I bought a Brainstring Advanced.	I received a nice Barnes & Noble Tangram set:
	Cubic Mania Puzzle Blocks was issued by Dale Seymour Publications. It comprises eight cubes, each colored with four colors. Each cube uses each color at least once. Using the chart of cube graphs I developed, the included cubes can be mapped to the tan set { 24 x 3, 27, 34, 42, 43 x 2 }. There are several challenges, including building a 2x2x2 where every side shows all four colors, and another where every side is a solid color.

Puzzle Ring Reader - by Akiyama Hisayoshi: 

A vintage Presidential Muddle Puzzle:

Yes, it is missing a button - but it is sturdy metal and larger than I thought. I like it a lot. See U.S. Patent 524703 - Carter Aug. 1894

An order from Witeden:

The Witeden 3x3x6 and Super 3x3x4 puzzles are nice. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the QJ pillowed cubes or even the V2 - turning is stiff and catchy.

Tiros, shown below, is an 18-piece burr designed and made by Alfons Eyckmans. I obtained this in a trade with French puzzler Guillaume Largounez. Guillaume was also kind enough to help me arrange a purchase of several other wonderful wooden puzzles by various designers, made by French craftsman Maurice Vigouroux...

Tiros - designed and made by Alfons Eyckmans Tiros requires 150 moves to get the first piece out!	Sticks in a Cage - designed by Tom Jolly - made by Maurice Vigouroux	Jupiter - designed by Stewart Coffin See U.S. Design Patent 232571 Coffin 1974 - made by Maurice Vigouroux	36 Piece Burr - made by Maurice Vigouroux This has only eight holes inside. It has one solid key piece, but without using piece coloring constraints, even BurrTools cannot solve it!
More photos of the Jupiter - it came in 60 unit pieces, 10 each of six colors. Five unit pieces assemble to make a "star" and 12 such stars go together, in two halves of six stars apiece, to form the puzzle. The colors must be distributed such that colored pieces mate, and all pieces of a color run parallel.
Burr Cube by unknown designer - made by Maurice Vigouroux from Caroline (Loblolly) Pine		Typhoon S1 by Osanori Yamamoto - made by Maurice Vigouroux

These small instances of Tom Jolly's Twist the Night Away and Pivot by Jos Bergmans, are available at Richard Gain's Shapeways shop. They're both great designs that require piece rotations to solve. I had fun solving Tom's puzzle at IPP29 in San Fransisco, but I missed out on Eric Fuller's limited edition of them, so it's nice to be able to have an instance of this design, and an inexpensive one at that. It did take a lot of sanding of the pieces to make this one work, though. Pivot took me a while to solve, and I only managed to do it after I saw an image of the solved cube and deduced the piece placement from the cuts on the faces. It's still difficult to figure out the required sequence of moves and rotations!

I received a Master Pentultimate designed and made by Eric Vergo. It turns very smoothly. This is a great design! Shown below along with Tom van der Zanden's Pentultimate, and Chris Hemerich's Elite Tetrahedron. The Elite Tetrahedron is also shown in comparison to Meffert's Professor Pyraminx.

I received a Dino Dodecahedron by Mf8, purchased from hknowstore. This puzzle was first proposed by Lukeharry then made by Kevin Uhrik, now mass-produced by Mf8. [T]
I solve this with no algorithms - it's a fun puzzle. Also quite large - larger than a Pyraminx Crystal.

I decided to change the "puzzling over lately" section on my puzzle home page to make use of jCarousel.
Please email me with comments if you like it, don't like it, or observe any bugs. I have seen the images disappear after multiple window resizes, for example.

Take a look at an interesting interview with master puzzle craftsman Tom Lensch, done by Woodcraft - here is the blog entry, and here is a YouTube video.

You can buy a spherical replacement core for your Meffert's Mosaic Cube, at Oskar van Deventer's Shapeways shop. [T]

The Quadratum Cubicum is an interesting assembly challenge from a French designer.

You can buy a Human heart anatomy puzzle. They also offer eye, skeleton, torso, brain, ear, muscle, and pregnancy puzzles.

A French collector Alain Koli has a great online collection of French boxed puzzles of all types [English translation].

The DaYan Gem II is a truncated cube where faces of the cube and vertices of the cuboctahedron rotate.

Stan Isaacs sent me examples of his Doctor Octo and Dr. High Octane puzzles. Both are members of the Instant Isanity family - but these versions use octahedrons rather than cubes, and a clever mirrored base to allow one to see all faces. Thanks, Stan!

I obtained this vintage advertising puzzle - the card urges readers to place a classified ad in the Pittsburgh, PA Dispatch. The puzzle objective is to remove the key from the card without damaging anything. The card refers to U.S. Patent 695059 - Kellogg - Mar. 11 1902, but also see U.S. Patent 295665 - Mount - 1884

I bought part of a collection from a fellow who decided to divest himself of puzzles. Here are some items I received:

The Sonneveld Cubed Burr puzzle, designed by Dic Sonneveld and made by Tom Lensch 3 unusual burr pieces inside a cubic cage - rotations are required to solve. Made from Shedua, Prima Vera, and Granadillo	Bermuda Hexagon designed by Bill Cutler in 1992, made by Tom Lensch 12 pieces to be packed into the hexagonal case in 3 layers. This design was awarded the 3rd prize in the 1992 Hikimi Wooden Puzzle Competition I think this one is made from Mahogany.	Stewart Coffin's Convolution, made by Wayne Daniels
A Good Egg - Rocky Chiaro D-Ice - Rocky Chiaro
A lock requiring three keys to open. Similar to but smaller than the large trick lock I bought a while back from Lee Valley.	A trick vesta that will prick the finger of the unwary.	A vintage trick lock - one must first find a way to open a panel to reveal the hidden keyhole, then one must figure out the proper way to use the key. An interesting mechanism, distinct from the trick locks I already have.
"Old Hand Cranes 1 Gin" Eight different blocks to be packed in the wooden Sake cup designed by Nob Yoshigahara produced by Hikimi	Coffin's Cuboids	Checkerbox - Bill Cutler 12 checkered pentominoes pack into a 3x4x5 box
Home Alone Husband - Toyo Glass Bin Cross - Toyo Glass designed by Bill Cutler
Most of the Toyo Glass packing puzzles... Plums, Pineapple, Peanuts, Corn, Beer, Rice Crackers, Pudding

A few more keychain interlocking puzzles:

Fellow puzzle collector Richard Whiting kindly made me this beautiful Imperial Scale tanglement puzzle. It's very elegant and Victorian-looking, with brass fittings throughout. According to Slocum, the earliest known example appears in Catel's Catalog of 1785. The Imperial Scale also appears in Hoffmann in Chapter II, #19. Richard tells me this is the second one he has crafted (the first can be seen on his own website, which is definitely worth your time). Thanks again, Richard!

Additional items from Oy Sloyd Ab: a 13-burr set "Boite 13" and a wooden lock by Constantin

Boite 13 includes just 13 burrs from the set of 25 notchable pieces, length-8 (1,52,103,256,1024,792/911,824/975,888/1007,960/992).

Some websites of interest:

Mighty Optical Illusions - dedicated to optical illusions, magic tricks and puzzles. Twisty Puzzles a la Vi - a YouTube video by Eitan, in the style of Vi Hart The Libro de los Juegos is a book on games commissioned by Alfonso X and completed in 1283. Images and translations from the book are online at games.rengeekcentral.com. You can find analyses of several interesting puzzles at Torsten Sillke's website Puzzle Hunt Calendar The Knot Atlas Structural Topology Online Pantactic Patterns and Puzzles, by Jacques Haubrich pienterepuzzels.nl puzzlefinder.net "The Ultimate Origami Puzzle"

Inzane Thingz Building a Japanese Crystal (Pagoda) Puzzle Even With the Little Puzzles Deceptology Quirky Puzzles Games From Everywhere Games and Puzzles Journal Interlocked Puzzler Gang's Puzzle Museum (Korean Blog) Lego Mystery Box Stoneridge Engineering - Electromagnetically Shrunken Coins

I have added links to several new Forums & Blogs.

I have created a page for Sequential Movement Puzzles, and consolidated several appropriate subcategories there. That new page links to several sub-pages, including a new page for Peg Solitaire and Jumping Puzzles. The Logic page is deprecated - there is now a section for Logic Puzzles on the All Other page. I have updated the Sitemap accordingly.

I have truncated this What's New page to Feb. 2010.

An order from Finnish company Oy Sloyd Ab. The order arrived quickly, and they were a pleasure to deal with!

Two sleeve-on-cylinder type mazes (Blindlabyrint) designed in 1983 by Lauri Kaira: 

Only 2000 copies of each were made; most were sold back in 1984. 1A is a single-track labyrinth; 1C is a branching maze.

Three designs by Vesa Timonen: 

In CFF #84 March 2011, Vesa published an article "A Travelogue to My Puzzle Designs" where he describes the genesis of several designs including the 1998 Timonen's Burr.

A large C and U tanglement, and HooDoo Loop by Popular Playthings (Thanks!): 

A vintage 1949 Intreeg sliding piece puzzle

Cool Moves (a type of peg solitaire) by Discovery Toys

A vintage Hedgehog puzzle called Trilby (US quarter coin for size reference)

More keychain puzzles:

I received this nicely made copy of the Discon puzzle, from craftsman Steve Kelsey. Thanks, Steve!

I received the level 138 18-piece burr Burrly Sane for Woodworkers, designed and made by Jack Krijnen. Thanks, Jack!

Other finds...

I have given a facelift to the Pattern Section.

I picked up some additional keychain puzzles:

Six-piece burr keychain puzzle	Canon keychain puzzle	Football keychain puzzle	Howdy Doody keychain puzzle
Elephant keychain	Elephant keychain	Horseshoe and Ball keychain	Burro and Rider keychain
Airplane keychain	Beetle keychain	Raygun keychain	Rocket keychain
Airplane keychain	Car keychain	Giraffe keychain
Allsides Cube keychain - designed by William Waite From a limited edition of 26 puzzles, including a signed card reminiscent of the way keychain puzzles were sold in the 50s. Each of the four pieces touches all sides of the cube, hence the name. Four moves to remove the first piece. "One of the most difficult keychain puzzles ever produced."

Other assorted finds:

John Devost has organized a charity auction to provide aid to Australian fellow puzzler Dave Cooper. Dave is a police officer working to help his community deal with the terrible aftermath of the flooding and cyclone, whose own home has sustained substantial damage. The auction runs through March 12, and can be accessed at www.puzzleparadise.ca.

An order from PuzzleMaster:

Chain Gang - Designed by Dick Hess

456 Burr

The Bee Box - Designed by Constantin See an explanation at Grand Illusions.

Hanayama Cast Coil

Get a Clue from Pavel Curtis.	A fully functional 3x4x5 from Tom van der Zanden.	Idiot's Delight - Field Mfg. Co. Inc. NY Cube set signature 01143639 - Isomorphic to SK
Contortionist Keychain Puzzle	Selected Papers on Fun and Games - Knuth	Games, Puzzles, & Computation - Hearn, Demaine
Unlikely Story Cluster Puzzle	Two 4x4x4 cubes - Shengshou and Ghost Hand 4x4 II

I finally obtained one of Bill Cutler's 66-piece Cube puzzles! The Cutler Cube is a beauty, 100mm on a side.

I've created a new section devoted to the Traditional 18-Piece Burr , and I've ordered some 18-piece burr puzzles:

Condor's Peeper from Mr. Puzzle. Level 62.

A design by Bruce Love called the Lovely Burr. Level 18. You might find one made by Jerry McFarland at Bill Cutler's website.

Vertigo from Pentangle Ordered from Mind Games in the UK.

Some additional finds - I was pleased to find the Bass Tantalizer puzzle - I have updated my section on the Instant Insanity puzzle family with some new research results.

An advertising version of the Tantalizer puzzle, from Bass.	The Professor Pyraminx, issued by Mefferts Designed by Timur Evbatyrov Another great design from Timur, mass produced beautifully by Meffert! I love this puzzle!
Gorey Games by Larry Evans 1979	A Lifetime of Puzzles Honoring Martin Gardner 2008	Pentangle's Leg Irons tanglement puzzle

On Saturday Feb. 12, I attended the 2011 New York Puzzle Party hosted by Tom Cutrofello, in Manhattan at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). MOCA is currently housing the exhibition "Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind" curated by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen. Oskar van Deventer was on hand to present his 17x17x17 Cube "Over the Top."

I picked up a few items, including:

The exhibition catalogue, "Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind"	A copy of "Ingenious Rings"	Bottom-filling Teapot and Fairness Cup set
An Unbandaged Helicopter Cube designed by Eric Vergo (this is copy number 1!) A 12 Sticks puzzle by George Hart, 3-D printed on his Makerbot. This is the 1st of his series of stick puzzles!
18 piece burr #3 - Creative Crafthouse Xcruci8 - designed and made by Vaclav Obsivac Exchanged at IPP28 by Laurie Brokenshire

A nails tanglement used to advertise Vicodin; a 1964 Tilt-n-Roll dexterity puzzle by Milton Bradley; a Crazy Maze Cyclops dexterity puzzle; a vintage cardboard "seat the witches on the cats" puzzle advertising Dickinson's Witch Hazel; Victory - a vintage 1943 cardboard Egyptian-type dissected square puzzle; a black 1x2x2 twisty puzzle:

A 17-piece jigsaw puzzle cut from a dollar coin, from Coin Cut Art by "Grinan" - 

I chose a 2000 Sacagawea Gold dollar coin. Grinan uses a steel blade only .002" thick. "Numismatic Jigsaw Puzzles" is an original idea of Jeremy Barrett and copyright of Coin Cut Art.

I am looking forward to the upcoming New York Puzzle Party hosted by Tom Cutrofello.

A set of Bishop Cubes

A bucket of Clics, to make various 4-color cubes to explore Instant Insanity type puzzles.

A vintage Setko Block Puzzle

A vintage Rotato Chips Puzzle by Grumette

Some interesting websites:

• Ludibay.net - a boardgame and puzzle shop based in France
• mf8 - a Chinese twisty puzzle shop
• Oli's Mechanical Puzzle Blog
• YoRTX - a Spanish puzzle blog
• Der Verrueckte Laden - a German puzzle shop
• Marusenko.com - the Marusenko Sphere twisty puzzle should hit the market soon
• sites.google.com/site/geduldspiele - an online collection
• bishopcubes.com
• Mozaniac
• ZZ Method Tutorial
• Matthias Wandel's puzzles
• Ah! Puzzles - Miwa Miwa
• toolcrib.com - puzzle plans for woodworkers
• www.puzzlepit.com
• http://www.gaya-game.com/
• a French puzzle blog
• Dam Thanh Son's Blog

And several new items below!

Dave Janelle of Creative Crafthouse sent me a nice selection of the great puzzles they stock:

The Ramube Octahedron designed by Ramu Kaminoff in 2008 and exclusive to Creative Crafthouse. Eight complex pieces and 2 balls locking things up inside. Dave says, "This is in my opinion our MOST difficult puzzle. It is difficult for me to imagine anyone solving this without use of the provided instructions."	The Century Cube II - a 4x4x4 cube composed of five serially interlocking pieces. A nice design that yields to logical thinking.	The Dragon Burr - a burr having 18 unique pieces. Rated as one of their most difficult puzzles. This was originally designed by Maurice Vigouroux in 2003 and called simply "The 18 Piece."
Erich Friedman's Cover Up design - three challenges. I got the easy level right away, but I am still working on the next two!	The (Count Your) Blessings Cube - six interlocking pieces. The pieces occur in three mirrored pairs.	The Giant Puzzle Some info from Dave: The "Giant Puzzle" was first introduced in 1888 by McLoughlin Bros of New York. We found a picture of the old puzzle in Slocum and Botermans book, "New Book of Puzzles" (1992) and were fascinated by it. It has a bit of a Sukoku edge to it, and it's really hard. The object is to arrange all the pieces in the base such that there is no color repeated on any row, column, or any diagonal. Also, no number can be repeated on any row, column or any diagonal. Also, each row, column and major diagonal must add to 25. You might try to tackle each of the requirements separately before you take on the full challenge of making them all happen at once!

Thanks, Dave!

On Saturday 1/15, I drove up and paid a visit to David Leschinsky at Eureka Puzzles. Had a great time, as always, and came back with some interesting items:

The Nifty Fifty from Jean Claude Constantin requires you to pack the four pieces into the tray.	The Quartet Puzzle - the Quartet's tray has a movable end wall, and you must pack specific subsets of pieces into the tray depending on where the wall is positioned.	Bill Cutler designed the Slider and used it as his exchange for IPP30. It looks innocent enough, but judging by the internals, it is not your typical 18-piece burr! It is made from Walnut, by Jerry McFarland.
Eureka is carrying a new line of nail disentanglement puzzles by Rick Irby. I picked up the Rattlesnake Nails, the Point the Way, and the Twister Nails.
David recommended the Dig It! puzzle produced by Foxmind. It is designed by Alex Polonsky. There are 50 challenges in four increasing levels of difficulty. In each, you must move a set of pieces in succession until a "bone" piece is fully revealed. This reminds me of the Flying Block (or Jumping Block) puzzles designed by Dries de Clercq. Sliding, jumping, and rotation of pieces are allowed, but only one piece at a time. Mr. Puzzle Australia produced one.

I found another dissected die - it seems fairly old - it comes in a purple box and has nine red pieces with white pips:

I am unsure of the provenance - there are no markings on the box or pieces. The box is 1.75"^3 (45mm^3). There should be at least 21 pips, but there are only 20 - so evidently one is missing. The pieces are not the same as the Wolff Spots Puzzle described in Hoffmann.

Several new twisty puzzles are on the way:

Elite Tetrahedron - by Chris Hemerich [T] [S] [Y]

Tuttminx - designed and prototyped by Lee Tutt in 2005 [T] - produced by Leslie Le [T] [W] The Tuttminx is a 32-sided truncated icosahedron.

Mosaic Cube - produced by Meffert - designed by Oskar van Deventer (as the Fadi Cube)

Ayi's 4x4x5 [T] [W]

A fully-functional proportional 3x3x5 made by Smaz.

I bought a copy of Eric Vergo's Pentagram puzzle - first announced at the TwistyPuzzles forums. It is an order-2 vertex-turning dodecahedron, designed by Eric and 3D printed by Shapeways. It is the same size as the Meffert's Pyraminx Crystal. You can buy a copy at Eric's Shapeways shop.

There is an online video review of this puzzle on YouTube.

I received a black Mini Rhombiminx. This is an order-3 vertex-turning rhombic dodecahedron, built around a 2x2x2 using custom parts. (The first Rhombiminx was built around a cut-down 4x4x4.) Every 4-part vertex turns, and there are 3 mutually perpendicular cuts through each square cross-section (i.e. the 2x2x2 cuts).

This puzzle is the same size as the Dino-Rhombic Dodecahedron (DRD) I got from Drew Cormier - here are some comparison photos:

It is larger than the white Mini-mini Rhombiminx I got a while ago, which is built around a mini-Eastsheen 2x2x2. Here is a group shot with various Rhombic Dodecahedra twisty puzzles.

The black Mini-Rhombiminx is in the center. The white Mini-mini Rhombiminx is below it; clockwise from there is a 2x2x2 Rhombic Dodecahedron made by Karl-Heinz Diekmann, a Kite Skewb, a truncated 4x4x4 RD, a Lanlan 4x4x4 RD, a QJ 3x3x3 RD, and the custom DRD.

I decided to purchase one of John Devost's HexTwist Five Intersecting Tetrahedrons puzzles - it is a geometric artwork, a real dexterity assembly challenge, and a great example of John's woodturning skills - each rod is lathe-turned to have a special twisting shape. The rods are made from exotic woods, including: Purpleheart, Bloodwood, Redheart, Bubinga, and Lacewood. They are held together by magnetic tips and chrome balls.

The long-awaited puzzles of Meffert's Jade Club finally arrived:

The tetrahedron and the cube are both made from a translucent plastic painted pearly white, with raised designs on the faces that have been highlighted in various pastel shades. They are very pretty, and each is fairly small though surprisingly hefty. Each contains a unique RFID tag!

Also received a Lanlan Master Skewb and a DaYan/Mf8 Crazy Megaminx Plus Saturn:

I really like both of these. It's great to be able to own a Master Skewb at mass-produced prices. The Lanlan version is nicely made and turns very well. Not too long ago custom copies were going for $400 - I bought a hand-cast version for over $100. I also really like the Crazy Megaminx Saturn. The fit and turning on the copy I got are very good, and I like the stickerless design and brightly colored plastic. It is about the same size and weight as a Meffert's Pyraminx Crystal. Purchased at the HK Now Store.

Here is Eitan's Edge-Turning Octahedron (ETO) - announced on the TP forums. Equivalent to Gelatinbrain 4.3.1. Available from Eitan's Shapeways shop. First shown by David Calzone back in 2009. Congrats to Eitan for making this available! The design moves well, is stable, and is a nice size. The puzzle came very nicely stickered.

In comparison with other octahedral twisty puzzles:

From top to bottom, left to right: Meffert's Skewb Diamond (order-1 face-turning octa); DaYan Gem I (edge-turning trunc. octa); order-2 vertex-turning octa; order-2 vertex-turning trunc. octa; order-3 vertex-turning master Trajber's; Meffert's Hex Skewb (order-1 face-turning trunc. octa); order-2 face-turning octa; Eitan's ETO (order-2 edge-turning octa); vintage Magic Octahedron (order-2 vertex-turning octa); QJ Trajber's (order-2 vertex-turning); hand-cast custom Trajber's made by David Calzone; QJ 3x3x3 octa (sort of hybrid edge- and vertex-turning); Octaminx custom made by me; Meffert's Pyradiamond (order-1 vertex-turning octa); vintage Christoph's Magic Jewel (order-2 vertex-turning trunc. octa); Lolo's Octahedron custom-made by Kevin Uhrik (order-3 vertex-turning octa); Truncated Trajber's custom-made by Tanner Frisby.

I still would like to find: a 24 octahedron, a Dino octa, a Rainbow octa, a Master octa, a Master FTO, and a Professor Trajber's. Maybe a Square-1 and/or Square-2 octa, too.

Happy Holidays to all!

Here are the four of the Karakuri Group 2010 Christmas Presents I ordered:

My selection this year included boxes by Kamei, Iwahara, Miyamoto, and Tuburai. Can you tell which is which? So far I have opened the second one shown.

Two tanglements from Fiddl'Widdit - thanks Susan & family! The Triamese Angels is an even more difficult version of the Gordian Knot / Eggbeater design, and the Ski Doodle is a multi-level trapeze:

From Meffert's, the Vulcano (aka Trignis) designed by Timur Evbatyrov, and the DaYan Gem (an edge-turning truncated octahedron):	Double Disk from Hog Wild LLC of Portland OR	An original Hungarian Supernova
Some duplicates, but each is complete: Jinxed; another 64-piece Mr. Jig-O-Pin; Mental Misery.		A set of McDonalds promotional puzzles

• Years ago I really enjoyed watching The Secret Life of Machines by Tim Hunkin.
• The Hedgehog Puzzle has an interesting history in the Czech Republic. See jezcivkleci.cz and Wikipedia.

Brett paid a visit on the 5th and traded some puzzles with me...

Hanayama Cast Rattle designed by Bram Cohen	Tetraxis by KO Sticks LLC Produced with support from the Museum of Mathematics	Slip-a-Not	Rubik's Slide
Lagoon Wild Wire Crocodile	Orbo by Popular Playthings	Dicebox Mindbender Cube Mates by Mi-Toys	Colossal Book of Word Play - Gardner

Some of Bruce Viney's puzzle box designs can now be purchased as DIY kits from Myers Crafts.
I ordered two - the Interlink Box and the Tik Tak Tok Box.

I got a copy of the Taschen edition of the 1847 Pickering coloured The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid by Oliver Byrne: 

• If you haven't visited Ed Pegg Jr.'s mathpuzzle.com, you really should!
• Conway's Game of Life in HTML 5
• Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
• ScienceNews - particularly an article about Neil Sloane's Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
• Women in Art
• Xmatrix
• Tetraxis
• The Speedsolving.com Wiki

Stewart Coffin's Diagonal Cube design - modeled by George Bell using BurrTools and printed by Shapeways - available at George's Shapeways Shop.
Three inexpensive wooden burrs.
Rubik's Slide	A pair of trick bolts, from Lee Valley.	Crazy 4x4 III	Lonpos Cosmic Creatures
DaYan III LingYun, DS Mahjong Cube, YongJun Star, ZhiSheng Egg (Potato)

A fully functional 2x3x4 cuboid twisty puzzle, designed by Garrett Ong. [T] [S] Garrett's 2x3x4 won the Summer Puzzle Building Contest. It's a great achievement at its price point (under $60).

The Ambigram Burr, designed by Gregory Benedetti. Available from Puzzlewood.de. Made from Wenge, Padauk, and Robinia. Thanks to Bernhard Schweitzer and John Devost!

• Last year I created my Halloween Web Challenge and to date I know of only one person who has solved it! Email me if you need a clue, or if you think I should post a walkthrough.
• Check out several videos of interesting paper folding toys you can make, at metacafe.
• There is a comprehensive list of Stewart Coffin's puzzle designs at the Metagrabology Wiki.

An acrylic 3-D maze This reminds me of "Next Floor" by Oskar van Deventer - see it at Oskar's website (scroll down).	La Canadienne - an advertising promotion edgematching puzzle	The elusive Duff Beer 2x2x2
A pillowed white Master Skewb made by TP forums member "Cublem" [T]	Two more tray packing puzzles in a vintage series by Lakeside - Horses and Animals
A version of the vintage Queen's Jubilee puzzle, called Uncle Sam's Divorce		A vintage Imperial Scale tanglement This is one of several classic tanglement designs that have appeared in puzzle chests from the orient in the 19th century. You can download a PDF showing how to make and solve several designs including the Imperial Scale.
Visual Illusions by James Kingston	19th Hole - Pentangle	Reverse-All and Bullseye by Setko
A set of three vintage picture puzzles by Currier & Ives - the Old Swiss Mill, the Puzzled Fox, and the Bewildered Hunter. Thanks to Gianni Sarcone for making me aware of these.

Some websites to visit:

First puzzles of October: a vintage Psyche-Paths puzzle, presaging Tantrix; Stewart Coffin's No. 250 House Party tray packing puzzle, made by Tom Lensch; The Gear Cube Extreme, designed by Oskar van Deventer and offered by Meffert's; Making Working Wooden Locks by Tim Detwieler; A vintage Ten Spot puzzle:

"The Five Minute Puzzle That Might Take a Little Longer" Designed by Andy Turner Entered in the IPP 2009 Design Competition Made by Eric Fuller, from Oak (box) and Paduak
1x5x5 - Murilo - Shapeways	Square 2 - originally designed by Dave Litwin; Beijing Olympics ball; Red 3x3x3 Apple
Curvy Copter II - Tom Z
Rex Cube - Cormier - Mefferts	Holey Skewb Twins - Fisher - Mefferts

An order from Funagain:

Mathematics, Magic and Mystery by Martin Gardner, 1956: 

The Question Mark Puzzle from Pentangle - six pieces form a cube in two ways, and also fit into the 3x6 box to form a question mark shape. - This is equivalent to the Steinhaus (aka Mikusinski's) Cube.

It's nearing the end of summer around these parts - but you wouldn't know it from the temperature outside - pushing 90 F.

Plan something for the fall - host or attend a Gathering For Gardner Celebration of Mind party.

Two new offerings available at Bits & Pieces, both designed by Doug Engel - the Moebius and the Trinity Infinity:

Josh Jordan was kind enough to send me a copy of the Calibron 12-Block Puzzle remake produced by Pavel Curtis. Thanks, Josh! Pavel has posted an interesting write-up of the Calibron puzzle. Pavel also offers the Square Dance by Derrick Schneider - I've been wanting one for a while and was pleased to find Pavel had resuscitated it! Square Dance won an Honorable Mention in the 2002 IPP Design Competition.

Via the Renegadepuzzlers forum, I learned about five new inexpensive wooden puzzles produced under the label "Confusion Contemporary Puzzles" by The Lagoon Group. I purchased mnine at Mind Games in the UK.

Trilogy aka "Three Open Windows" (made by Eric Fuller) Designed by Tom Jolly

Squarrel Designed by Ronald Kint-Bruynseels See it on Ishino's site

Mental Block Designed by Rick Eason aka the Twenty Cube

Caged Knot Designed by Tom Jolly See it on Ishino's site

Alcatraz Designed by Ronald Kint-Bruynseels aka Die in Prison #2 See it on Ishino's site

Three books (OK, OK, they're not about mechanical puzzles, but their topics might be of interest to puzzlers...)

Hobby Games - The 100 Best Edited by James Lowder See info at the publisher's site, greenronin.com. See a "companion guide" by Matt Tarbit. Also read some interesting factoids compiled by Alan De Smet.

Family Games - The 100 Best Edited by James Lowder See info at the publisher's site, greenronin.com.

Dice Games Properly Explained by Reiner Knizia

See a short video review of the Rubik's Slide.

See a gallery of antique dexterity puzzles. (Be sure to scroll right.)

Child's Play, a new twisty puzzle designed by Eric Vergo [T]: 

The Yankee Puzzle - a vintage route-finding puzzle patented in 1896 by W. G. Adams (554565), described in Slocum and Botermans New Book of Puzzles on page 110:

A vintage Jig-O-Pin puzzle:

A tangle set, an inexpensive wooden tray-packing puzzle by Toysmith, the vintage 1968 Double Disaster puzzle by KMS Industries, and Yankee Ingenuity by Tucker-Jones (new for 2010):

20 moves suffice!

Morley Davidson, John Dethridge, Herbert Kociemba, and Tomas Rokicki have proven that every scrambled position of Rubik's Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less. (Finding those 20 moves, however, can be quite a challenge!)

Read more at www.cube20.org.

I believe the rest of the group will agree with me when I report that the Rochester Puzzle Picnic hosted by Jeff Aurand on 8/7 was a success! I certainly had a great time chatting with fellow puzzlers and puzzle craftsmen, and assaying the wide variety of puzzles on hand. Jeff has amassed an impressive collection of Karakuri boxes, Jim brought some rare pieces, Kelly and Jim let us try Kelly's latest creations, and we got to play with the competition entries from Stephen, Peter, and Soahn. I was also able to pick up the batch of puzzles Brian was kind enough to collect for me during IPP30 in Japan. Thanks again to Jeff, and to Brian! You can read more about the event at RenegadePuzzlers.ca.

Brian opened my Strijbos Aluminum Cylinder Box: 

Brett got me a copy of "Knotty Number Problems" by Ivan Moscovich (thanks!): 

I found a vintage sliding piece puzzle, and a wooden interlocking puzzle:

• The Rochester Puzzle Picnic is fast approaching!
• The winners of the IPP30 2010 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition have been posted. Bram tells me his Cast Rattle should soon be available from Hanayama - I'm looking forward to it! Here is an interview with Bram on Internet Evolution Radio where Bram talks about his puzzle designs, as well as his day job.
• Hannah Avery is a UK woodworker who has been getting the word out about her products, which include a nice table with a substantial functional six-piece burr puzzle as a base. See her website: www.hannahavery.co.uk. Hannah tells me that customers can specify any burr puzzle and the pieces need not be limited to the notchable set. The price noted on the site is around $1000 at today's exchange rate.
• Some of you might know that the Columbus' Egg is a vintage dexterity puzzle from the 1492-1892 Columbian Exposition, held in 1893 in Chicago. Fans of Nikola Tesla, an eccentric electrical engineering genius, might know that he created a version of the Egg of Columbus to demonstrate the principles of the rotating magnetic field and induction motor. Here is a YouTube video of a recreation of the device.
• Check out an interesting Japanese puzzle website: puzzlab.com.
• Visit the Puzzle of MINE Web-shop.
• A somewhat impractical door security chain called "Defendius."
• See "Building Complex Machines Using LEGO" - Andrew Carol shows a Babbage Difference Engine, and an Antikythera Mechanism, both made from Lego!

Quintessence Copyright 1970 by gametime, Inc. of NY, NY A 5x5 Graeco-Latin Square - arrange the 25 pieces in a 5x5 grid such that no row, column, or diagonal contains more than one instance of a circle color or tile color.	1x3x4 Designed by Ola Jansson, made by Tanner Frisby
Terra-Toys offers a series of four "3D Puzzle" animals in their Wildlife Conservation Collection, made in China from woods claimed to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. I picked up a Polar Bear and a Panda. Both have unusual opening tricks - not difficult, but distinct from the typical Kumiki-style animals. There are also a Rhino and a Sea Turtle. The Rhino is very similar to the Nanook Polar Bear.
In and Out Boxes by Loftus I know, I know - magic tricks usually make poor puzzles. But this effect sounded interesting - you start out with the red box inside the black, then remove the red and put the black one inside it.	Two vintage folding puzzles from Binary Arts: GeoLoop and GeoMorph12	The new DaYan GuHong Cube allows reverse corner cuts. This particular version is molded from six colors of plastic so there are no stickers to wear off or tiles to fall off.
ShengShou Circle Ball Cube	Dian Sheng Hexagonal Dipyramid	Dian Sheng Tank Diamond
Pepsi edgematching puzzle (Spanish)
Hanayama H&H - designed by Oskar van Deventer Thanks, Brett! This one seems very similar to Oskar's "Key Ring" design. See Oskar's web site.	Handcuffs - from Teddy Sakamoto	Hanayama - Mickey Keys Thanks, Brett!
The set of eight types of DaYan Crazy 3x3 Plus Cubes - "Eight Planets" The circle pieces either do or don't turn with the face. The eight types are different ways of arranging dos and don'ts. I got mine from Mefferts but you can find them at several vendors.

For great coverage of IPP 30, see:

From Mr. Puzzle Australia, new for IPP30, One Four All and Mt. Fuji.		A vintage Think dissection puzzle in its package.
An assortment of vintage puzzles, from the UK.

An order from Lightake.com:

"Gem" from DaYan A Magic Jewel clone	Six-armed spider cores by MHZ and Maru	QJ 3x3x3 RD black
Intellect Ball - 13cm	QJ 2-layer Super Square-1 and a 2x3x3 cylinder	QJ Finhop 3x3x3
A Pyramorphix clone	Rugby ball	Treasure Box
QJ truncated pyraminx	Kong Ming Lock 28831	Kong Ming Lock 30394

A vintage (1928?) sliding piece puzzle, "Al Smith to the White House"

Read some biographical material about Al Smith at www.nps.gov.

A spherical dexterity puzzle, and a trick vesta that will prick an unwary finger: 

A new cross between the Pioneer Cube and Munroe's Marbles, and a set of ShengShou Cubes: 

Another vintage version of the classic dexterity puzzle "Pigs in Clover" - this one by Milton Bradley:

A 2x2x2 Rhombic Dodecahedron, made by Karl-Heinz Diekmann: 

Think-a-Dot, a vintage puzzle/game by ESR: 

ESR (Education Science Research) (Wikipedia entry) made a few toys especially coveted by geeks, including Think-a-Dot, Digi-Comp I and II, and Dr. Nim. You can buy a replica of the Digi-Comp I from Minds-On Toys. Jaap's Puzzle Page has an entry on Think-a-Dot. Pantazis Houlis posted a YouTube video showing his Think-a-Dot in action. Webster.edu hosts an online simulation.

Neurotic Numbers, a vintage 1968 puzzle from Lakeside: 

Thanks to Tanya Thompson at Thinkfun, I'm puzzling over their new Zig Zag Knot: 

Peter Wiltshire has crafted from aluminum a reproduction of the Stanley puzzle found in Hoffmann (Chapter VIII, No. 12): 

He has a very limited number for sale at Puzzleparadise.

Eureka Puzzles in Brookline had the new Philos version of Shirt Case designed by Edi Nagata: 

Unfortunately, the solution given for the tray side shown in the photo does not work - the pieces are a little too large and don't quite fit. Given that a cardinal rule of mechanical puzzles is "no force required" this is very frustrating, particularly since this is the kind of puzzle I like to give to casual puzzlers to play with, and this flaw encourages violating that rule.

Some additional websites of interest:

Karl-Heinz Diekmann made this instance of Ola Jansson's 2x5x5 puzzle for me:

The comparison photos show the 2x5x5 with the KHD/Olz 1x4x4 I recently acquired, and an original hand-made 1x3x3 from Okamoto I got a while ago (prior to its mass-production).

In case you haven't noticed, I've reorganized the home page to improve readability, make navigation a little easier, and to improve its appearance when JavaScript is disabled.

The Aluminum Cylinder Box by Will Strijbos, courtesy of John Devost (John's photo): 

New twisty puzzles from Meffert's: The Skewb Hex, Mastermorphix (traditional shape), and an MF8 Teraminx:

I received several great logic puzzles produced by Smart Games, many designed by Raf Peeters:

They include: Anti-Virus, Titanic, Roadblock, Alcatraz, Anaconda, SmartPhone, Chicken Shuffle, and Cannibal Monsters. Anti Virus is the production edition of Bulbous Blob designed by Oskar van Deventer and James W. Stephens - you can see it and play a few levels at the Puzzlebeast website. Thanks, Raf!

Brett got me two new puzzles from RecentToys - Bronco designed by Oskar van Deventer, and Mind Jewel, designed by Alexander Polonsky: 

  G      R      W      G  
R B G  B G W  W R R  G W B
  G      B      B      W  
  W      R      G      R  
                          
  1      2      3      4  

Two new puzzles in fine woods from Eric Fuller's latest sale at CubicDissection: Luxemburr, designed by Matti Linkola, exchanged at IPP16 - made in Yellowheart and Walnut; and Padaung Rings, designed by Alfons Eyckmans and made from Tulipwood and Acrylic - it takes 24 moves to remove the first piece.

Yet more twisty puzzles! Meffert has produced Oskar van Deventer's Caution Cube [S] and calls it the Gear Cube; Swedish designer Ola Jannson's 1x4x4 design has been FDM printed, assembled, and stickered by "incredible" Karl Heinz of Germany [T].

The Svetnashki is a sliding piece puzzle design from Russia, based on polarized light:   It comes in two sizes: 7 cm. and 10 cm.

I obtained a vintage Pigs in Clover dexterity puzzle. This puzzle caused a craze around 1889, and appeared in political cartoons of the time. It was invented by G. M. Crandall, who applied for a patent in February 1889.

I dyed, assembled, and stickered my Shim's Master Pyraminx. I really like this puzzle! It was designed by Timur Evbatyrov and is available on Shapeways.

Here are two photos to show relative size - a comparison with an original Tomy Pyraminx, and a group photo including various tetrahedral twisty puzzles:

The group photo includes, left to right, row by row from the top: the Hoberman BrainTwist, Meffert's Jing's Pyraminx (designed by Adam Cowan), Meffert's NGP (Platypus), Tomy Pyraminx, a custom Halpern-Meier Tetrahedron (keychain Skewb core) made by Matt Davis, Meffert's Pyramorphinx (a curvy Mastermorphix), Traiphum Prungtaengkit's (Traiphumi's) Mastermorphynx (a custom-made edge-turning Pyraminx), a keychain Meffert's Pyramorphi[n]x, Shim's Master Pyraminx, and a reuleaux Babymorphix custom-made by Taylor Howell.

I received two wooden burr puzzles - on the left is The Baffling Burr Puzzle ("Six interlocked pieces of wood that will challenge the experts") - there is no other information on the box. This has pieces numbers 52, 615, 792, 960/992, 975 and is Bill Cutler's #305, not Bill's Baffling Burr, which has pieces 103, 760, 960/992, 996, 1024. The second is the Burr Puzzle from Toys From Times Past. This has pieces 1, 188, 256, 960, 975, 1024 and is the same design shown in Hoffmann, except Toys From Times Past has incorporated a locking mechanism into the key piece.

A Skewb-core Rhombic Dodecahedron, from Popbuying.com:

I've provided a solution for the vintage 1904 National Puzzle (aka Saunders' Puzzle), in my Routefinding section.

For inexpensive wooden puzzles, check out PaxPuzzle.com.

Cube4You cubic 3x3x7 (black)	A set of wire puzzles, including the Valspar puzzle.	4x4x4 Trajber's Octahedron
Digits in a Box, designed by Eric Harshbarger and exchanged at G4G9. Ten size 1x3x5 digits laser-cut from colored acrylic - just pack them into a 5x5x5 box. Purchased at Eureka, also available at Eric's quickbrownfoxpuzzles.com.		Puzzle Impossible, from Hanayama. This is an unusual sliding piece puzzle - marks on the transparent pieces combine with marks on the tray to form digits. Purchased at Eureka.
Athena, from Popular Playthings (Huntar). Designed by Bob Hearn. Bob discusses the genesis of this puzzle on the TwistyPuzzles Forum. Athena is a re-skinned version of Bob's Subway Shuffle puzzle. Purchased at Eureka.	Cobra Cubes, from SmartZone Games. Designed by Ariel Laden. Purchased at Eureka.	World Passport, from SmartZone Games. Designed by Tzafrir Kazula. Purchased at Eureka.
The Crazy Cheese Puzzle, from Blue Orange Games. A nice wooden 3x3 edge-matching puzzle with two levels of challenge. Purchased at The Games People Play.	Holzwurm (Product No. 6038), from Philos. Designed by Dieter Matthes. Form a 3x3x3 cube from 9 pieces having protrusions and hollows. Purchased at The Games People Play.	Confusio (Product No. 6170), from Philos. Designed by Georg Pfaeffinger. Made from Schima, Hevea, and Samena woods. Form a 5x5x5 interlocking cube from 9 pieces. Purchased at The Games People Play.
A vintage Saunders' Puzzle, marked National Puzzle Boston.	Wire Puzzle No. 1 - China Purchased from EsTOYS.	The Lost Game of the Pharoahs A simple six-piece ball pyramid. (Pharoah sculpture not included!)
Twist-L-Dan, in Oak, Wenge, and Karin woods, designed by Takeyuki Endo. Purchased from the Karakuri Club.	8Pd, in Oak, Angsana, and Karin woods, designed by Takeyuki Endo. Purchased from the Karakuri Club.	The vintage Cubo Color Puzzle.
Shim's Master Pyraminx, designed by Timur Evbatyrov (YouTube videos here and here), available on Shapeways.	Got the Stewart Coffin Tray Puzzle Set, in Poplar and Lyptus woods, made by Tom Lensch. Purchased at PuzzleParadise.ca. This set includes six of Coffin's tray-packing puzzles - a single-sided rectangular tray (#181, 1 solution), a two-sided pentagonal tray (#181-C, The Housing Project, 1 solution each side), and another two-sided pentagonal tray having a movable wall segment on one side (#181-A, The Castle Puzzle, 3 solutions; #181-B, The Tree Puzzle, 2 solutions, other side #181-B, The Vanishing Trunk Puzzle, 1 solution).	Two new twisty puzzles: the Intellect Ball, and a mass-produced 2x2x4.

I dyed my Compy Cube purple (just to be different) and stickered it:

The Compy Cube (aka Shallow Dino, aka Sausage's Cube) is a full custom 3-D print, designed by Jason Smith. It is easy to solve intuitively, requiring no memorized algorithms.

I acquired a RevoMaze Extreme Silver (V2):   As of this writing, only 3 people in the world have solved one!

Ordered three new cubes made in China by QJ - mass-produced copies of classic mods - the Trajber's Octahedron, Greenhill's 3x3x3 Octahedron, and Fisher's 3x3x3 Dodecahedron:

On 3/13, I attended an enjoyable puzzle get-together hosted by George Hart at his house. Thanks, George! We had a fun evening and a safe trip out and back, despite the horrendous weather, which brought down an incredible number of trees along many roadways. I took along several puzzles from my collection for folks to try, including the Eis by the mysterious R.D. - George's friend Glen Whitney, who is executive director of the Museum of Mathematics, solved it! George put it back together, whereupon it defeated all comers for the remainder of the evening. I did, however, manage to reproduce the feat at home - but it wasn't easy even after having seen it done! At right is a picture of the insides. George had plenty of puzzles of his own for people to play with. I found a large burr by the fireplace and managed to solve it. It was a model for the Giant Burr at the Math Midway exhibition - see George's Math Monday Blogs (the 1/11/10 entry). I've added the design to the catalog in my section on burrs, to which I have made several additional updates.

Check out Jim Storer's Puzzle Collection!

Rounded out my collection of beautiful aluminum puzzles by R. D. Rose:

Left to right, they are: #1 Double Dovetail Square, #2 Double Dovetail Round, #4 X-Y-Z Burr, #5 Vortex, #6 Double Semi-Maze.

I already have #3 Triple Dovetail Triangle, #7 Dodecahedron (both originals), #8 Iso-Crate, and #9 Six-Key Mine (copies from Bits and Pieces).

I got a copy of Tom Jolly's great two-piece design called Tangler, made from Quilted Maple by Eric Fuller.		I bought one of the large versions of Jason Smith's first run of the Compy Cube (a Shallow Dino).
I bought one of Garrett Ong's hand-made 2x2x4 puzzles (before I knew they'd be mass-produced).	Tai Yan black 3x3x3, Dian Sheng (Type E .222), "Professional Speed Cube," DaYan Crazy 2x3x3 black, Mickey Mouse head 2x2x2

The annual New York Puzzle Party (NYPP) hosted by Tom Cutrofello took place on Saturday Feb. 13, and was pretty well-attended, with about 40 people enjoying the day of lectures and puzzle buying, selling, trading, and playing. A few of us got together and stayed at Brett's house Friday and Saturday nights. You can read about it on Brian Pletcher's blog.

I found a few new puzzles - eL Perch by Rick Eason, Only 2 Sticks designed by Kofuh Satoh and made by Saul Bobroff, and Coyote Howling at the Market by Jurg von Kaenel, QJ Heart-to-Heart and 2x3x3:

Other new puzzles - online purchases and some auction finds...

		I picked up a backissue of the journal of The Conjuring Arts Research Center, Gibeciere Vol. 4, No. 2 - this issue includes a complete translation of Pablo Minguet y Irol's 1733 book Engaņos ā Ojos Vistas which contains an early mention of a six-piece burr puzzle.
A burr made by Brian Menold:	A copy of Stewart Coffin's Twelve Piece Separation design, made from Mahogany and Bloodwood, by Thomas Moeller.
Ordered a pair of black Edison 3x3x3 Cubes from edicubes.com.

Truncated this file to improve load time.

Here are links to old What's New files (some overlap):

• Mar. 2011 back to Aug. 2008
• Aug. 2008 back to Dec. 2006
• Oct. 2007 back to Dec. 2006
• Mar. 2007 back to Nov. 2005
• Dec. 2005 back to Jan. 2005
• Feb. 2005 back to 2003, when I started this incarnation of the site
• A condensed view of Nov. 2005 back to 2003 - gives an idea of the kind of damage this puzzle addiction can do!