A spirited journey through the world of collectible artisan puzzles
Pairing craft cocktails with crafty puzzles
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What’s in a Name?
I’m thrilled to welcome another designer to these pages, Phil Wigfield. He has recently dipped his toes into the world of trick boxes, with a phenomenal debut he promises is just the first of many.
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Play the Silver Ball
Matt Williams, a die cast machinist in England with a brilliant knack for creating outstanding mechanical puzzles, loves pinball, and has produced a remarkably puzzling object in Pinball Wizard.
Military Brass
Who Dares Wins is a British television show named after the SAS (Special Air Squadron) motto. It is also now a collaborative puzzle lock box from a bunch of brilliant Dare Devils....
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Happy Hour
Puzzle historians will be well familiar with the works of Angelo John Lewis, an English lawyer and avid magician, who catalogued a compendium of puzzles of the Victorian era.
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On the Record
Franz Rudolph Wurlitzer was a German immigrant to the United States who started a music company in 1853 based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Going crazy
We head back to Tel Aviv to visit our friend Boaz Feldman, Israeli puzzle maker and heir to the Feldman lock legacy.
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Whale of a Tale
Call me Ishmael … no, that doesn’t sound right. You can’t start anything good with a line like that. Hmmm … Call me Idan.
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Pearls of Wisdom
Fans of Brian Young know of his occasional “limited edition” puzzles, which he has released in small numbers since practically the start if his business.
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Does Not Compute
We are returning to the French Alps to brush up on some basic arithmetic this week, where our host Doug “Doog” Menzies has written a puzzling equation to ponder.
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Feeling Lucky
In 1894 Charles Fey introduced the world’s first slot machine, the “Liberty Bell”.
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Voyages Extraordinaires – Part I
In 1866 (so the story goes) nations around the globe begin sighting a mysterious sea monster.
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A Day at the Circus
What has 114 individual parts, weighs almost 1.5 kg, pays homage to a petting zoo, the circus, an Angel, Harry Potter, and has been confused with a berry?
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Coasting Along
Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, "Come and find out". ― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
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Brass Monkey 5
What’s heavy and made of brass, has six pieces that fit together, looks the same as four other things and is totally different?
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Brass Lighthouse
Whenever I am visiting a destination where there is a lighthouse, I find a way to fit that into the journey and see it with my own eyes. So here we are again taking a little tour, or detour, to another.
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