According to the E-Bay description by the member
(  Wired For Fun ) from whom I bought this puzzle, "Our European Wooden Puzzles are made by master craftsman, Vaclav Obsivac.

Vaclav makes each puzzle as if he were making them for Royalty. The quality of each puzzle is outstanding and is almost impossible to understand until you actually touch and feel each puzzle. Only the best European hardwoods are used in the production of each puzzle.

Vaclav uses many different types of hardwood in the production of his puzzles. Familiar hardwoods such as cherry, maple, walnut, etc.. He also uses other hardwoods that are harder to find, such as hornbeam, plum, acacia etc.."

Core : 2 inner pieces

2 sets outer pieces

The object of this puzzle is to find a way to get inside the base to retrieve a special coin hidden in there .

. . . for a look on the wild side of how this works -- if you dare -- check it out  here . . .

Lagoon Games logo

The finger ends have a patented Roto - Tab design .   Twisting the turnable knobs on the ends of the fingers will turn the wheels .   To add to the level of difficulty, sequential numbers have been added to each of the wheels .   This puzzle is the palm-sized version of its bigger brother Mad Triad which has six wheels .

There are six colors of progressive difficulty levels :
easy yellow . . . . . simple orange . . . . . silly green . . . . . complex blue . . . . . crazy red . . . . . terrible black .

To quote a fellow collector friend of mine : "..... maybe they rate by # of dead-ends? Distinct passages? Total solutions (fewer = harder)? Length of solution passage, or number of turns or backtracks involved?"

shaft

shaft pin















sleeve  . . . . . the maze .

top of shaft
This part is stamped 'CorToys' .

bottom of shaft

A whopping 2 7/8" in length !

. . . 15 pieces

As tiny as the pieces are, they are shaped and fitted with exact precision .

. . . in a vertical position .   There are two halves : the top half (7 pcs) and bottom half (8 pcs) .   The halves pivot 360° at the center point .

. . . small enough to fit in one's palm

. . . with quarter

A safe haven for an expensively rare little Titan .

Notice all the major sides have the same numbers .   Clever .

pieces

According to the folks at  yot.com , "It relies on an advanced law of physics ...... Hint: The secret is in the Sphinx.   The solution requires logical thought, intuition and imagination.   It's fun to test your mettle on YOT's metal! "

. . . the inner disk











. . . medalion

When purchased, either this medalion or a US Eisenhower silver dollar comes with the puzzle .

. . . backside

Classic 'Victoria' Train
. . . from Reiss Games (a subsidiary of National Paragon Corporation) (1974) .

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white dice Soma Cube

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Cracker Jack

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. . . . . pieces

Another version using numbers can be seen on my  30+ Years Ago page .

This puzzle consists of 24 pieces that, when formed together, make the shape that you now see.   There is 1 key locking piece, and when it is removed, the puzzle basically falls apart.

Solution can be viewed  here .

Solution can be viewed  here .

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Jailbreak

According to Bits & Pieces online catalog description, "Imprisoned in a cage, this little brass ball is waiting for you to liberate it.   Can you set it free from its stand and sneak it through the jail bars?   The way out is through manipulation and persistence.   Made from brass and nickel.   Measures 2 3/4" high x 1 1/8" in diameter."

Click  here to see solution

This is a copy version (under the 'Imagine' series) of a very unusual burr (Coated Burr) by Jürg von Känel, the creator of The Burr Puzzle Site .

According to Karin & Jürg von Känel's  World of Wooden Puzzles , "This puzzle was desinged by hand for the 18.th International Puzzle Party (IPP18) exchange in Tokyo. The puzzle carries two engravings, one is the IPP18 logo, and the other one the jvk logo, with the serial number.   I made 93 of them in Cherry and Walnut. #3.01 - #3.93.

The Coated Burr can physically be assembled in 4 ways.   But only one of those 4 ways will leave the IPP18 logo intact.   That is also the most complex solution (level 5) while the others are simpler.   Here is a step by step  solution for the one way which gets the IPP18 symbol assembled right: ."

The solution can be viewed  here

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pieces

Purchased from Johore, Malaysia.
Their store can be accessed at their eBay store  tropicalestore
Or you can email them at  tropicalestore@yahoo.com

Rubik Shells is a puzzle that consists of 4 intersecting rings, coloured wheels with 8 balls each, which can rotate. The wheels are in two pairs; two axes with a pair of wheels on each, and the two axes are separated and at right angles to each other so that any wheels from one axis has exactly one ball in common with any wheel from the other axis.

The object of the puzzle is to separate the coloured balls, each colour into its own wheel.

There are 28 balls, 7 of each colour. There are 4 intersections, so 4 balls will belong to two wheels simultaneously. Each wheel intersects two others, so in the solved state each wheel will have one intersection of its own colour, and the ball at the other intersection matches that of the other wheel.

An interesting feature of this puzzle is that each axis also has a button. By pressing a button, the two wheels on that axis permanently lock together.

There are therefore 3 grades of difficulty:

Basic (no buttons pressed)
Tough (one button pressed)
Challenge (both buttons pressed).

Note that once pressed, the buttons can never be released. Also, the puzzle is always solvable, even if the buttons are pressed when it is in a mixed state. Pressing a button takes some force, so there is no danger of doing so accidentally.

This globe is built out of 60 plastic pieces that shape the globe.   It is approximately 1/32" short of   3" when assembled.   This puzzle is made by Warren . . . a Roseart company.   There are also   6" -- 9" -- and 12" versions.

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Box

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Instructions

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panels opened

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lid off

This high quality puzzle box is the real thing, handmade by the master craftsmen themselves.   These fine quality puzzle boxes are rarely sold outside of the mountainous village of Hakone, Japan.

According to the folks at  Cleverwood , "The “Himitsu-Bako (Personal Secret Box)” is a traditional Japanese puzzle box that was designed over 100 years ago in the Hakone region of Japan. The Hakone Mountains are noted for their great variety of trees. The Personal Secret Box takes advantage of this wide variety of natural wood colors and textures to produce their elaborate geometric patterns. The appeal of the Personal Secret Box is not merely in its entertainment qualities. It is valued as a Yosegi-Zaiku is a mosaic woodwork usually applied to small handicrafts such as trays, boxes and chests. This marquetry technique is originated in the late Edo Period, and in May of 1984, was designated a National Traditional Handicraft by the International Trade & Industry Minister.

For many years, the town of Hakone was a relay station on the main road to Edo (present day Tokyo) and Hakone-yosegi-zaiku was developed as souvenirs for travelers. The geometric design is made by binding together various shades of wood. Shaved off with a special plane, very thin sheets of wood are then used as an outside finish for various objects such as boxes. For a craft item to be designated a Traditional Craft Product under the Law for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries, it must satisfy the following criteria:
The article must be used mainly in everyday life.
The article must be primarily manufactured by hand.
The article must be manufactured using traditional techniques.
The materials should be mainly those that have been traditionally employed.
The industry must be of a regional nature.

Most Japanese Personal Secret Boxes (Puzzle Boxes) have a variety of difficulties ranging from 4 to 66 moves. From a puzzler’s point of view the 59-move box has the most interesting sequence of moves, even better than the 66. A few large puzzle boxes have exceptional numbers of moves, such as 78, 122, 119, or 125.   These are made by Yoshio Okiyama, who is more than 80 years old, and is a legend in Hakone Himitsu-bako.   He chooses his own wood, cures it, cuts it to size, and to make a long story short does everything himself except make the Yosegi that he applies to the boxes.   He is the grandson of one of the first puzzle box craftsman from Hakone.   He has retired and has made his last box.   Mr. Okiyama died in 2003."

The distinctive mark of craftstudio "IZUMIYA" is inside this box.   The "IZUMIYA MARK" certifies the best quality Himitsu-Bako among others.

This  link will show the kinds of woods used in the thin veneer yosegi patterns used .

This handmade puzzlebox comes from The Collectors' Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.   The quality is fair;   however, on the backside of this box - hidden from view - a couple of the ribs were not lined up straight when they were glued to the main core.

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a single rib piece removed

Either this piece or the small drawer (as in the next pic) can be removed first.   Either of the two stops the large drawer from being removed.

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1st drawer removed

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2nd drawer being removed

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inside the main core . . . . . as seen from the opening left from the large drawer

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A more frontal view of the starting side of the box.

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both drawers and the single rib piece

This is yet another version of The Tower Of Hanoi
(my version: The  Tower Of Creation )

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spread out

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3 invisible 'pegs'

An acrylic version of my  Tower of Creation

T H E

It opens up from a cube into 2 stars and then 2 hollow cubes;   also a rectangular box, intersecting cube and star etc.   Or, as the instructions put it - 'transformation of two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons from a cube.'   Now we know!   This is the original silver and gold Japanese design, not the cheaper Taiwanese version.   Handmade by the artist himself, Naoki Yoshimoto.   He does not make this design any more, and we have now sold out.   We believe that he may make a new version of the Yoshimoto Cube at some point."

( . . . from the Binary Arts people )

This hardly constitutes as a puzzle because the assembly of the pieces is very straightforwardly simple. Nothing puzzling about it. I just thought it was a nice-looking item to add to my collection. Fairly well-made.
However, I made one out of pine called 'Framed Star', which is tricky to assemble.
You can see it at  My Creations page.

Star Of David . . . flag side

As you can see from this picture, with the pieces all lined up so that the notches face in the same direction, the stars are in a different location between both sets of 3 pieces.

When assembling, one of the sets is used, then the other. They are not mixed.

Star Of David . . . logo side

Star Of David . . . partial assembly

KRAZEE Checkerboard Puzzle

. . . . . made by Plas--Tix Co. Inc. from Jamaica, N.Y.

The solution can be viewed  HERE

According to the seller (puzzler2) -- from Michigan, "You are bidding on a hardwood Looney Loop puzzler about 11 inches long by 3 inches wide, in fine condition and comes with its own display holder. Made by Btis & Pieces and in its original box, the puzzle comes with a solution."