Way back in October 2012 I wrote about Robert Sandfield’s Locked Drawer – I really liked it, you may recall.
What I didn’t mention at the time was that it had a younger
brother, also beautifully crafted by Kathleen Malcolmson, called the Unlocked
Drawer… it’s taken me a couple of years to find a copy for sale, but earlier
this year I was able to find a copy of Robert Sandfield’s IPP27 exchange
puzzle, and I feel obliged to yabber about it on here…
Now when I saw it has a younger brother, there is a very
clear family resemblance: they share the same external features, but they’re
made of different woods. The Unlocked Drawer has a beautiful Lacewood exterior
surrounding a rather similar looking drawer to the one in the Locked Drawer… and
there’s a similar rattle when you shake it.
You’re told your goal is to retrieve the Texas Quarter from inside
the drawer…
Unlike it’s younger sibling, however, this drawer doesn’t
simply slide open and present the coin, in fact, a fair amount of coaxing and
tugging will not encourage it to budge a mere millimetre.
A very close
inspection of the drawer itself doesn’t yield much at all – except that it is
VERY firmly locked in place… there is literally no play on the drawer whatsoever.
As you’d expect, when you finally work out how to open this
box, there are a pair of beautifully crafted dovetails keeping everything where
it should be… did I mention that Kathleen presented a masterclass on dovetails
in puzzles at IPP36? :-)
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