B i o g r a p h y

Hi there ! I am a senior-citizen (02/15/1945) puzzle collector/craftsman from New Hampshire .
I am probably the only serious collector in this state -- at least no one has come forward to rebuff me on that fact .
I won't bore you with all the past jobs I have had, but would like to say that after working as a glassblower in Nashua, NH for 11 years -- between 1967 to 1978 for a firm called Scientific Specialties -- which involved all aspects of fabrication methods and approaches, including diamond scoring, wet-belt sanding, bench and lathe work, tooling, vacuum systems testing, the use of precision calibration tools . . . and much more -- I have acquired a talent and appreciation for precision that has helped me in these latter years in fabricating my 'creations' .

All I have for major power tools in creating my fabrications are a small Craftsman table saw and an old Atlas 5-speed floor drill press   My workshop is a 10' x 16' wood utility shed, with no heating unit, and no exhaust system, so I have to work mostly in the summer .

I am currently semi-retired as an auto parts delivery driver for Sanel Auto Parts, a branch of 35 stores and five warehouses, mostly here in New Hampshire -- with a few stores in Vermont, and one or two in Maine .

I have collected 300+ puzzles in 30+ years, which in a lot of circles is considered very modest ( mine, because of financial restraints) .   One can view my collection website starting with the Flash intro here

You will be immediately taken to my FLASH intro page .   Be sure to have your speakers on, as there is some very nice background music accompanying the FLASH events as they happen .   From here, you can begin your journey into a nostalgic viewing of puzzles you may have come across from years long past .

-- or --

You can simply skip the Flash intro and go straight to my HOME page . . . . . from which you obviously just came .

When someone asks me, "what kind of puzzles ?" do I have, I simply answer them,
"almost everything other than ordinary cardboard/plastic/wood jigsaw puzzles"
(although I do have a limited-few plastic 3D jigsaw puzzles from Mag-Nif Inc. which still has an ongoing website).

. . . . . The entire website is family-oriented, and is rated 'G' for Goodness . . . . .
There is a page titled ' My Creations' where one can view the puzzles that I have created new versions of old designs .   All my wood puzzles are made from North American Eastern white pine, kiln-dried at about 8% humidity, and many of them are flame-torched for grain highlighting, and sometimes given several coats of Watco Danish Oil Finish ( just to enhance its aesthetics by way of contrast from other areas . . . such as the contrast between natural blonde-color to flame-torched areas), making sure not to apply any where the puzzles' mechanical sliding maneuvers would be interfered with.

One will also get a sense of awe when browsing the pages;   besides getting bombarded with a plethora of animated enhancements, there is also a wealth of information that accompanies each of the pictures .


My Ebay nickname ' 14gordianknot ' is an interesting choice: the number 14 is part of a magic 6-digit number 142857 . If you were to take this number and multiply it each time consecutively by 1 through 6, you will find that each of the answers has the same numbers in it as the magic number itself -- and in sequential order -- even though each of the first digits of each answer is different . Multiply the magic number by 7 and see what happens . Beyond that, an interesting pattern starts to emerge.

142857 x 1 = 142857
142857 x 2 = 285714
142857 x 3 = 428571
142857 x 4 = 571428
142857 x 5 = 714285
142857 x 6 = 857142

142857 x 7 = 999999

142857 x 8 = 1142856 see a pattern starting here?
142857 x 9 = 1285713

The word 'gordianknot' is the combined form of Gordian Knot, a wire puzzle sold by Pentangle of England, as can be seen on one of my website pages titled My Creations -- Gordian Knot .
This puzzle is one I consider to be one of the few string-and-wire puzzles out there in Puzzledom to be very difficult .   Consider for a moment, the fact that the string is attached to the central straight wire, which is closed off on each end.   One has to naturally ponder the conundrum of how this string is able to possibly come off this puzzle.   But it does!

The ThinkFun people (formerly Binary Arts 1985) sell a multi-colored board burr version -- called Gordian Knot -- of an original design by Frans de Vreugd called 'Extreme Torture' which can be seen here .


One very interesting page in particular, is the story behind The Tower of Hanoi puzzle here .   Here you will see a progression timeline that will absolutely astound you .

There is another special page solely dedicated to a fairly rare puzzle which originally sold for $49.99 and was acknowledged as The Hexadecimal Puzzle, the first to be made by Binary Arts (1985-2003) -- now called Think Fun (2003 - ). Unlike all their later puzzles (which are made of plastic), this one was made of cherry wood. Its solution employed the Gray Binary Code -- which is also used in the Chinese Puzzle Rings, The Brain and The Tower Of Hanoi -- and had the capability of being reset to 16 variations, the obvious versatility making its claim of being 16 puzzles in one.

My wife Linda and me on the Mount Washington on Lake Winnepesaukee.