Dicey Box - Bill Darrah by Brian Young

I was fortunate to have acquired this cool puzzle from ‘Monkeypuzz’ at Puzzle Paradise.

I’ve yet to unscramble this one and reassemble it as per the instructions so I’ll have to update that later..

Here’s the Description from Brian at Mr Puzzle:

“Edward Hordern IPP27 Puzzle Exchange – Gold Coast, Australia. August 2007.  200 made.
Presented by Bill Darrah.  Made by Mr Puzzle Australia. Designed by Bill Darrah.
Original Price: AU$70.00

The puzzle is to disassemble and reassemble the 12 piece wooden burr so that all the decorative routing is symmetrical.

The puzzle can go together in two different ways. One way, without the decorative routing symmetrical, is how the puzzle is presented when sold. You will have to completely take it apart so that you can then put it back together with all the routing symmetrical. This is a lot more difficult than it may first appear.

A very elegant design by Bill Darrah who is well known for designing very difficult puzzles. As well as being a burr it is actually a box with an inside space of 45mm x 45mm x 45mm. Puzzle made from Mackay Cedar.
Size: 100mm x 100mm x 100mm”

IPP 1994 Puzzle - Wolfgang Schneider by Kubi Games (Germany)

This puzzle is one of the coolest I’ve seen.  Obviously by the name it was a puzzle at the 1994 IPP but what makes this puzzle noteworthy is its IPP themed challenges.

The booklet that accompanies this tray puzzle mentions 20 different Challenges including a 4x4 cube.

I have added all of the booklet challenges, see pics below.

The Eclecticube by Kevin Holmes

I was fortunate to have acquired this puzzle.  It’s another gem from Kevin originally designed in the ‘90’s.

If you happen to have Rik & Kevin’s ‘Cube Compendium’ you’ll recognize the exploded view of this particular puzzle on the cover created by Frans de Vreugd.

My One and Only - Stewart Coffin Design #178-A by John Devost

I didn’t keep accurate records of my early puzzle builds so I can’t seem to recall having made any copies of this design.  In Stewart’s 2003 printed edition (by John Rausch) this particular puzzle was not named but now has been.

I decided I should probably make a few with some nice 3/4” cubes I had on hand.

Here’s a description from Stewart:

“I include this seemingly mundane puzzle design to show that there is still room for discovery within even this most common category of dissecting the plane - what I call ‘graph paper’ puzzles. The problem here was to find a combination using the five non-symmetrical pentominoes (made of five joined squares) plus one other pentomino that fit into a rectangular tray one way only. After a long search, this goal was finally achieved.

Then, using an amazing computer program called PuzzleSolver3D, I had the satisfaction of confirming that I had discovered the one and only combination that met all of my requirements. Try to top that if you can.

But there is more. Pleased with this lucky discovery, I generated a catalog of about 20 other symmetrical problem shapes, some with unique solution. Three are shown here, and the others are left to be rediscovered or improved upon.”