Tell me about it…

Seriously. Please tell me about this puzzle!

I want to know who made it, what it’s called and anything else you can tell me about it… please!

…in return, I’ll tell you a story about it…

[EDIT: Thanks to the wonders of the inter-web, and in particular Nick and Matt, I now know this is called "Keep" by Mike Green. So now you know too.]

I found this lovely little red puzzle box in one of Wil’s crates at IPP – it looked fairly rustic and I made the mistake of assuming it would be reasonably simple to open… I fiddled around a little and made some progress fairly quickly, opening the top of the box and finding a coin resting on top of a silver coin-shaped sticker in the recess… so far so good…

…and then found I couldn’t get anything else to happen – to the extent that I found myself asking Wil if there was indeed any more to find (surely I’m not THAT rubbish as a solver, am I? RHETORICAL QUESTION – STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD!) – Wil did a Wil and shrugged before returning his attention to the paying customers. Fair enough.

After a while he suggested I take it away and try harder – I was pretty sure there must be another opening – there was a lot more space available, and the bottom panel seemed to have a fraction of movement in it – at least more movement than it might have if it had been glued together!

So I took it and tried for quite a while during the Puzzle Party to open it further.

I carried it pretty much everywhere I went and offered it to everyone I came across…

Until I offered it to Louis and an MPP-crowd while I wandered off to do something important (Don’t ask, I can’t remember!) – when I got back they gave it back to me, significantly heavier and jinglier than it had been when I gave it to them… they not only opened it, but they had also had a quick whip around for the largest volume, lowest value pocket change they could find to fill up my little red box…

 

So I sat down to try and open it again.

And failed, again.

At dinner the next night I summoned up sufficient courage (partly mine, partly Peter’s) to try again – and then finally made the breakthrough I was needing…

This box is very unusual, I’ve never seen a puzzle box use a locking mechanism like that before… it’s rather sneaky and quite clever, and I love my little red box…

After that I let Wil know that I’ve finally solved it and tell him I really rather like it and I’d like to purchase it… at which point he tells me it’s a gift from his lady- friend – chuffed doesn’t do it justice!

Spasibo!