Nail Box by Bill Sheckels

Bill’s work features superb craftsmanship that I’m always amazed, this box just exudes high quality!

Boxes and Booze has an excellent blog here on Bill’s Nail Box:

“Bill Sheckels has been crafting fine furniture for over fifty years. He has been fortunate to run a successful small business over the years in pursuit of his life’s passion. His beautiful craft is highlighted by Scandinavian and Shaker style sensibilities and the simplicity of form that follows function.

Bill also has a passion for puzzles and makes them in his spare time (which he has more of lately, certainly good news). His designs, like his furniture, are elegantly simple in appearance and offer the satisfying feel of a hand-crafted object. While his puzzle shop offers a wide range of interlocking and put-together type diversions, I am of course most fond of the puzzle boxes he has made. He recently thought up an idea for the classic “nail box”, an old puzzle box trope which uses a few nails to keep the lid secured, unless you know the clever trick. I cannot claim to know the exact origins of this puzzle mechanism, although Bill points to a design called the “Johnny Walker Trick Match Box” which was patented by Herbert Taylor in England, 1910. The reference is found in Slocum and Botermans “New Book of Puzzles”, 1992, and the puzzle can be found in the Lilly Library archives. The mechanism was incorporated in Nob Yoshigahara’s famous Cross Puzzle (Dualock) in 1981, and again in Akio Kamei’s innovative Top Box. Bill wanted to introduce a new spin on the old idea, and succeeded. Characteristically simple in appearance, with a nice color contrast of cherry and wenge woods, his nail box is very unassuming. You are compelled to perform the classic move, if only to confirm it will not do the trick here. Eventually, a thought may occur to you, which you might dismiss out of hand, thinking, well, that would be clever and fun, but it couldn’t possibly work like that, how could it? The truth is, Bill did not set out to make the box work in this way (I am being obscure on purpose, of course), yet succeeded nonetheless. It’s a brilliant new twist on the old design, and another milestone on the timeline of this classic.”