Coin Wallet

When Mine showed us pictures of Coin Wallet a few months ago, I thought it looked really interesting… knowing it was designed by Koichi Miura, I set my expectations high and made sure that I joined the queue to purchase a copy.

I wasn’t disappointed!

Coin Wallet invites you to insert two pairs of coins shaped pieces into the rectangular frame with the smallest of possible restrictions along the two edges of the top. You get two yellow three plus one coins pieces and a pair of white two plus ones. There’s a pair of windows on the sides of the frame to allow for manipulation and a quick bit of experimentation will convince you that you need to get the coins into a classic 5-pip arrangement for them to all fit properly inside the frame without projecting beyond the height of the lips.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, no the manipulation holes aren’t large enough for the coins to pass through them – you’re only going to get the coins in through the single top opening.

The frame allows for the thickness of three coins, plus a little wiggle room and it all seems totally fair…

So let’s dive on in and just drop everything in there… and that goes swimmingly until you get to the last set of coins, which are just a little too wide to get inside the frame… perhaps it’s time to Think (c).

Turns out you’re going to need to do quite a bit of thinking, and a fair amount of experimentation leading you to discover quite a few different sorts of manipulation that might just be useful – and then find the secret sauce that combines them all in the right order that allows you to magically get around that initial little hurdle.

It’s a great little puzzle where the aim is totally obvious, and there are few enough pieces that you feel it should be simple, but it will earn your respect and make you a fan… it was certainly a big hit with the boys on our recent King’s Day trip!