I was fortunate to have acquired all of Henry’s IPP Exchange puzzles recently and I’ll be featuring all of them in separate blog posts.
This cool puzzle by Henry was featured at the IPP 23 in Chicago, Illinois and marked his first appearance in the Exchange.
This ‘ Kumiki’ style puzzle actually has a locking mechanism that must be defeated before complete disassembly!
I’m a big fan of Lucie’s designs and this was one that I missed out on but thankfully I acquired it from a fellow collector.
Obviously not an overly difficult but it’s quite charming and one I really enjoyed and highly recommend!
Kevin Sadler wrote about it:
“This attractive puzzle by Lucie Pauwels is sent out in a special travel conformation – it is a nice hollow 3x3x3 cube containing a nice marble (pearl) and held in a frame by long dowels that go through each corner along each axis. The dowels need to be pushed out and the cube dismantled. I scrambled the pieces and left them for a while to lose any memory of the positioning and then set to rearranging the pieces back into shape. This is a nice logic puzzle that shouldn’t take long for experienced puzzlers but might be a decent challenge for a beginner. I found it quite fun after the effort required for the others. Looking at a Burrtools file there are 2 possible assemblies but I have so far only managed to find one of them.”
I first had a copy of Hajime Katsumoto’s ‘Slide Packing’ that was wonderfully crafted by Tom Lensch, the smooth sliding lid on the box was what really struck me.
This newer design by Dr. Latussek is beautifully crafted by Pelikan and it also has a mesmerizing sliding motion to the box with sliding lid!
Dr. Volker Latussek wrote about it:
“SLIDE PACKING by Hajime Katsumoto is a style icon. The purist form of his puzzle is fantastic.
I set myself the task of developing a sophisticated packing puzzle using his sliding box. The puzzle should consist of five pieces that fill the sliding box as completely as possible.
The task sounds simple. Pelikan presents the result of my work in CABRIO. Many thanks for that. This puzzle required many development steps to learn precisely how the sliding box interacts with the pieces. I had a great time doing this, and maybe you will play with CABRIO and discover a new and exciting mechanism for this interaction? That’s what I wish for you and I, and especially Hajime Katsumoto, who gave us his beautiful SLIDE PACKING.”
Kevin Sadler wrote about it:
“No Pelikan release is complete without a design from Dr Latussek! When opening the package, it looks very understated. All you can see is a very nicely crafted box made from American Walnut which Pelikan have failed to close properly. Pulling off the lid reveals some rather lovely Zebrano pieces inside forming an apparent 3x3x3 cube. No wonder the lid couldn’t close properly – it needs to be slid on from the side and the pieces are in the way.
The upshot of the sliding mechanism of the lid is that this is effectively a 7 piece puzzle with the pieces needing to interact with the base and the lid to get the cube inserted inside and the puzzle closed. It is very reminiscent of the fantastic Slide Packing puzzle by Hajime Katsumoto that won the Puzzlers award in 2016. This time instead of just 4 pieces to insert, there are 5 with 3 of them being non-planar shapes making the solution really quite counterintuitive.
I found quite a few 3x3x3 cube shapes that were possible but of course they all blocked the assembly of the lid and needed to start with a completely fresh way of thinking about this. Like many of Volker’s puzzles, you need to think about the last piece to be inserted and how you might get access to that and then try and work with the remaining pieces and the lid to make that final assembly possible. There are 2 obvious possibilities for the final piece but then you will realise that you also need a proper plan for the penultimate piece and it is not as straightforward as you might anticipate. I worked on this for several days before I had a glorious Aha! moment and managed to put the lid on properly. This is a work of genius, just like the predecessor by Hajime-san.”
This is a very clever puzzle that I really enjoyed, I’m often struck by puzzles with only three pieces but can still be so much fun, it reminds me of Stewart Coffin’s ‘Three Piece Block’ puzzle that had stumped many puzzlers!
I originally missed Pelikan’s drop of this cool puzzle but thankfully they released a few more and quickly snatched up my copy, special thanks go out to Pelikan.
Here’s Pelikan’s description:
“Peter Hajek’s exchange puzzle at IPP40. This is a 3-piece burr with simple notches. You are even shown its solved state shape. So far so simple. The problem is that this thing was designed by Peter Hajek and Wil Strijbos.”
I was fortunate to have acquired another of Henry’s ‘train car themed’ puzzles and this was Henry’s Exchange puzzle at IPP 40 in Jerusalem in 2023.
As I was researching all of Henry’s puzzles I finally was able to document pretty much the full list of his work and hope to feature them if/when I’m able to acquire others.
This is the 3rd in Kelly’s ‘Yardstick’ themed puzzle box series and features 6 moves to open. I’m continually amazed at Kel’s ingenuity and this cool puzzlebox just puts a huge grin on my face once solved!
The idea behind this series of very limited puzzle boxes was conceived by Kel with the first being ‘Pinch an Inch’ back in 2017.
They are all to be custom made using old fashion ‘Yardstick’ rulers that are becoming increasingly hard to come by.
Kel has been crafting these as he accumulates enough yardsticks to complete one box and contacts me once complete.
You can read more about his previous editions in one of my blog post.
Tom’s superb craftsmanship is on full display with this gorgeous packing puzzle. The Mahogany box has such a smooth sliding action that I spent a considerable amount of time simply admiring it, and then finally turned my attention to attempting to solve this very clever design. Pieces are East Indian Rosewood with a Walnut Box.
For some reason this post was never uploaded, I just recently acquired a new version by Dr. Volker Latussek and that post will appear here soon.
Kevin Blogged about it, here’s an excerpt:
“It is a "simple" packing puzzle but was so clever that it won the Puzzler's award in the design competition. How could I possibly decline the opportunity to own and solve such a brilliant challenge. The cleverness in the design is that the 4 pieces consist of 3 C shapes and a single crooked S shape. They are to be fitted into a 3x3x3 space within that he box - the twist in the tale is that the lid of the box slides in place and would be blocked by anything more than 2 units high. There are several ways to make the pieces fit into a 3x3x3 cube but not starting with a shape that is only 2 units high!”
