Where can I buy mechanical puzzles (burrs, wire puzzles, interlocking puzzles), and which ones are worth...

Mechanical Puzzle Sources and Recommendations (January 1994)

Some time ago, I posted a spoiler for the Alcatraz puzzle.  I also
mentioned that since several people had e-mailed me, asking me to suggest
what other mechanical puzzles might be of interest, and where they might be
obtained, that I would address those requests in another posting.

Herein I'm going to describe some of my favorite mechanical puzzles
and give a list of sources which may be able to provide puzzles via mail-order.
Please note that I do not have any affiliation with any puzzle designer,
manufacturer, or vendor, and that whatever opinions I may express below
are not to be attributed to anyone but me.

Sources
-------

Where I do not specify country, please assume USA.
I have NOT personally verified all of the contacts below.
If you call anyone, please consider any time zone difference!
Also, toll-free 800 numbers might not work from outside the US,
or they might not be toll-free.

The following are what I would consider "major" suppliers.
I have dealt with all of them, except for Ishi in London.

Ishi Press Int'l.
76 Bonaventura Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
Tel. 408-944-9900,  800-859-2086
FAX  408-944-9110
They carry items from Pentangle, Kamei, Strijbos, Arjeu, and many others.
They put out periodic mailings, and they offer a progressive discount scale.

Ishi Press Int'l.
20 Bruges Place
Baynes St.
London  NW1 OTE  UK
Tel. 071-284-4898
FAX  071-284-4899

Puzzletts
24843 144th Place SE
Kent, WA 98042
Tel. 206-630-1432,  206-223-2340
FAX  206-639-0994
Owners are Mike & Connie Green - very nice people.
Mike is planning to offer a bound color catalogue to subscribers.
Subscriptions cost $25, and for this you also get a 10% discount on
purchases.

Games People Play
Mass. Ave.
Cambridge MA
617-492-0711
They are perhaps the best East-coast store.
As far as I know, however, they do not have a catalogue.

Pentangle - Paradox Engineering Ltd.
Salisbury Lane
Over Wallop
Hampshire SO20 8HT
England
Tel. 0264 781833
FAX  0722 339104
Really nice quality Burr-style puzzles.

Bits & Pieces
1 Puzzle Place
B8016
Stevens Point WI 54481-7199
800-544-7297
They are a catalogue mail-order house.

World Wide Games
PO Box 517
Colchester CT 06415-0517
800-888-0987
FAX 203-537-2866
They are a catalogue mail-order house.

The Museum Store
(chain in shopping malls)

The following are sources with whom I have NOT personally dealt:

Wayne Daniels
Interlocking Puzzles
PO Box 382
Minden NV  89423
702-782-8613
According to Mike Green at Puzzletts, Mr. Daniels makes nice wooden
versions of some of the puzzles designed by Coffin.

Wil Strijbos
Brederostraat 18
5921 BM Venlo
Nederland
31-77-826-213
Strijbos makes, among other things, puzzles out of industrial bolts.

The Game Place Catalog
4512 University Way NE, #102
Seattle WA 98105-4511
800-826-4263
They have more games than puzzles.

Toys From Times Past
4299 E Shearer Rd.
Rhodes MI 48652-9606
517-689-4663
A small, family-run place.
Puzzletts carries some of their stuff.

Richards Puzzles, Inc.
1086-B Mechem Dr.
Ruidoso, NM 88345

Oskar Van Deventer
Vilvoordehof 7
5628 TG Eindhoven
Nederland

IQ Products Ltd.
Ryan Place
Manukau City, New Zealand

Puzzles & Games
Lake Taupo
New Zealand

Binary Arts Corp.
5601 Vine St.
Alexandria VA 22310

Channel Craft
PO Box 101
Charleroi PA 15022

Random House
3200 South St.
Lafayette IN 47904

Tomy Corp.
901 E 233rd St.
Carson  CA  90745
213-549-2721

Some Puzzles I'd Recommend
--------------------------

Describing a mechanical puzzle without recourse to a pictorial representation
can be difficult, and unfortunately I do not have access to the tools necessary
to offer binary images of my puzzles.  At least one person who e-mailed me
wanted to know which puzzles might be worth the considerable expense of
international shipping, and I wouldn't want any deficit in the quality of my
descriptions to induce someone to order something they wouldn't like.
Additionally, neither would I want someone to miss out on a puzzle I believe
would be appealing!  I'll do my best to be informative.

Prices, where mentioned, are in US dollars.

The following 3 employ hidden mechanisms which impede their disassembly.
If you don't enjoy that type, skip these, otherwise, I believe these are
among the best representatives. (I am aware of but I don't yet have any puzzle
locks. I hear they're made in India, but I don't have a source.)

1) Alcatraz
I've already devoted two postings to discussing the Alcatraz puzzle.
It is inexpensive, available from Puzzletts for about $12.

2) Duallock, from Hikimi
This is another example of a hidden mechanism, nicely made in wood.
I got mine when I was in Japan, but Ishi Press carries them.

3) 4-Block Lock, from Toys From Times Past
Perhaps one of the toughest (I haven't solved mine yet).
Nicely made in wood.  Available direct, or from Puzzletts.

Another type involves constructing a solid from interlocking or stacking
pieces - like the Bedlam Cube (which I don't yet have) that was discussed
in r.p recently.
Gordon Brothers makes 3 puzzles where pieces constructed out of joined unit
spheres stack to form pyramids -
(4) Giant Pyramid
(5) Big Pyramid, and
(6) Perplexing Pyramid.
All three are fun - I'd recommend the Giant Pyramid
for difficulty - I solved it using a computer program which ran overnight
on a Sequent parallel processor machine, consuming 2G of disk for intermediate
results!  Puzzletts has these, and they are inexpensive.

Another type entails disassembling (and then re-assembling) a group of
interlocking pieces, where the interlocking bits are initially hidden
internally.  Such puzzles are commonly lumped together as "burr" puzzles,
but there can be great variation within the type.  Some of the better ones:

(7) Mayer's Cube - from Pentangle.  Very nicely done in wood.
You need to move several pieces before the first can be removed.

(8) Secret Box - from Arjeu.  Nicely made in wood.  Maybe a bit simple for
its cost.  Free 4 interlocking burrs from a box.

Then there are "free the ring" style puzzles, some of which are fairly heavy.
Both Uncle's Puzzles and Tucker-Jones House offer many varieties of
"tavern" puzzles, made of heavy bent metal loops, where the object is
to free a ring, a shuttle, or a rope from the rest of the structure.
Some of my favorites are:

From Uncle's Puzzles:
(9) Vee Mobile, (10) Trapeze, (11) U2, (12) Challenger, (13) Pentagon

From Tucker-Jones: (14) Dirty Dog

Possibly the hardest free-the-ring I've run across is (15) "Ball and Chain"
from Pentangle.  This isn't a heavy tavern-style puzzle, although its
principle has been copied.  This is one of those where on initial inspection
you say, "It can't be done."  I actually mailed England for the solution,
and had my wife read it, just to make sure it could be done.  It can,
and after making a topologically equivalent model out of string, I
figured it out.

These are Rubik's-cube style puzzles:

(16) The Skewb - Available from Puzzletts for about $35.
Novel axes of rotation.  The one I got is very nicely made of plastic,
with a precise mechanism.

(17) Square 1 - I got mine in a local department store - they are currently
out in toy stores.  Square 1 is a nicely different take on planes of rotation
and is (I believe) simpler than the 3x3 cube because of the constraints
imposed by the asymmetric axes.  I wrote a program which has produced for me
a wide variety of "operators."  If anyone knows how to exchange two small
wedges in the same face, without altering anything else, please let me know!!

These involve using a sort of binary sequence to unlock them:

(18) The Brain - by Magnif - Available from Games People Play, or Puzzletts.
This one is neat because, with practice, you can gain the physical memory
to solve it quite rapidly, and impress your friends (and yourself) with
"flying fingers."

(19) Spin-Out - Binary Arts.  Also available from Puzzletts, or from the
Museum Store in-mall chain.
Another one where flying fingers can be learned.

In the miscellaneous category, I'd recommend the following:

(20) Oskar's Cube - maneuver a solid "xyz axes"-shaped piece in the center of
a hollow cube simultaneously through 3 different mazes on the faces of the
cube.  I got mine from Games People Play, and I've seen them in the Museum
Store.

(21) Pop Earth - free a spiky ball from a cylindrical cage.  No trick
mechanism - just a seemingly impossible task of rotating the ball
properly through the bars.  I got it out, but I'm not sure if I used
permissible force - though I did not damage it.  About $12 from Bits & Pieces.

(22) Luminations - an electronic tetrahedron with groups of LEDs at each corner.
Use various patterns of tilting the puzzle to cause specific combinations
of LEDs to be lit.  Progressive levels of difficulty.
Toys 'R' Us was blowing them out for about $10.

(23) XL-25 by Vulcan Enterprises.  I don't know if this one is still made.
Pressing an LED in a grid causes a specific change in the pattern lit up.
Goal is to light the whole grid.  My favorite sound effects.

-- Robert R. Stegmann <rob@redacam.redac.com>

[ Editor: an earlier list (March 1994), in reply to Izak van Langevelde
<iavlang@cs.vu.nl>, who had seen an advertisement for a mail-order
company selling construction, topological and metal-wire puzzles: ]

Worldwide Games                   They have a very nice collection of
P.O. Box 517                      quality games and an assortment of
Colchester, CT  06415-0517        puzzles.

Bits & Pieces                     Excellent collection of jigsaw puzzles
1 Puzzle Place                    and some interesting manipulative
B8016                             puzzles.
Stevens Point, WI  54481-7199

Stuart T. Coffin                  "Unusual Puzzles in Wood" is the best
79 Old Sudbury Rd.                collection of "burr" puzzles I've ever
Lincoln, MA  01773                seen.  They are a work of art, using
                                  some exotic woods.

Bill Cutler Puzzles, Inc.         "Non-Rectilinear Burrs" is a small
[Editor: "Inch" in the original]
405 Balsam Lane                   catalog of handcrafted burr puzzles.
Palatine, IL  60067               I recently received their catalog.

These four are probably the best sources for quality puzzles around.  I
have been collecting, solving, and making my own for years, but not of
the quality that you will find, especially from Stuart Coffin.

-- Jerry Miller <Jerry.Miller@f13.n8012.z86.toadnet.org>

[ Editor: on solving string-and-ring puzzles in general, from a 1997
reply to Wendy Hoskins <wendy@uzza.demon.co.uk>, whose description of a
wood-and-string puzzle is not in the collected material: ]

If I understand this description correctly, the solution is to pass the
red bight up through the upper trapped ring, over the sphere, and back
down.

The more general solution is that most puzzles of this type can be
solved easily with a little visualization (for a challenge, close your
eyes). Imagine all of the components of the puzzle becoming gummy and
malleable. Then make a few components disappear, solve the simpler
puzzle, reintroduce the obstructive components and try again. In this
case remove the trapped rings and blue string and make the pillar melt
into the base and the problem is trivial. Now replace the pillar, the
lower trapped ring and blue string, and finally the upper ring. At each
stage it should be easy to modify the solution of the previous stage.

-- Horse Head <Horse_Head@nym.alias.net>

> I am looking for a Rubik's Revenge (4x4x4) puzzle or clones made
> in Macau.

Puzzlet's Saga shows the full range of Rubik's cubes, from 2x2x2 ($??) to
5x5x5 ($39).

Their address:

   Puzzlets, Inc.
   24843 144th Place S.E.
   Kent, WA 98042
   (206) 630-1432

-- Izak van Langevelde <iavlang@cs.vu.nl>, August 1995