Box 1

Phil Wigfield’s been hand-crafting stunning brass puzzles for ages and he’s had a bit of an itch that he’s been wanting to scratch for a while now: he’s wanted to make a puzzle box… he’s been talking about it on and off and the stars have eventually aligned…

Enter Box 1, a handsome little brass box with a definite Rocky Chiaro vibe about it – which shouldn’t be surprising given just how much the master of brass has inspired our Phil! 

Phil was originally going to call it “Simple Box” as he reckoned that would describe it best… which is interesting because I found the solve anything but…

Back at DCD he’d told us he was planning to tee up some boxes shortly, and then four weeks later he rocked up to MPP with enough copies for anyone who wanted to buy one – which, given the amount of work that goes into each of these little guys, is phenomenal!

I handed over some cash and popped the little black velvet bag into one of my crates to play with the next day (ironically, I always get more puzzling time the day after an MPP for some reason).

It’s a handsome little lump of brass with a prominent hinge and a neatly decorated lid that literally won’t budge – if you put this on a shelf next to your Rocky puzzles, nobody would bat an eyelid – it looks the part.

I spent far too long solving this one! …and when I eventually did and examined the locking mechanism, I was astonished at just how elegant it is – elegant and delightfully exacting – as long as you do exactly the right thing, it will open perfectly, but if you do anything else in between, you will be doomed to fiddle aimlessly for ages… kind of like I did… I definitely got value for money on this solve.

Open the box and you’ll find Phil’s signature and your serial number - #2 for me – Oh and a word to the wise: solve over a table… you’ll thank me!

An excellent first box from Phil – I suspect a lot of us would love there to be a whole series, but judging by the amount of work that Phil’s realised go into these little masterpieces, I’m not totally convinced there’ll be a lot more of them…

Nice 1, Phil!!