Sunday 30 August 2015

Classic Foshee!


Ring Box was Gary Foshee's IPP29 exchange puzzle. 

It is a classic Foshee puzzle!

Beautifully machined in aluminium, the Ring Box resemble a sub-C battery – just about the same size with a little button on one end. It arrives in a pretty little purple velvet drawstring bag with a folded piece of paper clipped to the drawstring that says “SOLUTION” on the outside. Clearly this is meant for amateurs! People who might actually resort to peaking at the solution… Perish the thought!

The first time I came across this little beauty was at a Dutch Cube Day in Eindhoven… Nigel had picked up a copy from someone and he was handing it around to annoy people… he succeeded on me and I managed to get absolutely nowhere – so I knew I needed to pick up a copy of my own at some point… and one finally came across my path recently.

This time I managed to spend a little quality time with it and solved it reasonably quickly and it has become an instant favourite. At first, the only interesting thing it will do is allow you to press the sprung button… over and over again… with not a lot of result. Examine things a bit more carefully and you might notice something interesting… but then you’ll probably hit a wall…

If there are some helpful puzzlers nearby, they might even ask if you’ve tried spinning it or blowing on it… but once you find its simple little secret (and grin broadly at Gary's impish sense of humour) you will be able to retrieve the brass ring safely hidden inside the Ring Box.

Brilliant bit of humour wrapped in a lovely puzzle.


7 comments:

  1. This is still one of my favourites! I love puzzles that have a completely unique trick, no matter how simple, and this is just a gem. I'm glad you got hold of one Allard. By the way, my supplier was our favourite Dutch peddler!

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    1. ...somehow that doesn't surprise me! - It surprised me just how elegantly simple the mechanism really was - I was thoroughly over-thinking things!

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  2. I never solved this at an MPP! I tried for ages to do so but couldn't I even used the solution and still failed!

    Kevin
    Puzzlemad

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  3. Nice review, but you are 6 years late :-)
    Do you know if Gary still make this one?

    Thanks!

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    1. ...I don't think he is making these any longer - and I'm pretty sure I wasn't really collecting puzzles (or blogging about my non-existent puzzle collection!) 6 years ago... ;-)

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  4. Sadly, I know how this is solved because I noticed this puzzle in the IPP29 souvenir book.

    Is there anything written on the paper, other than "SOLUTION"?

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    1. Aw sorry to hear that George - nope - nothing at all other than "SOLUTION" - ;-)

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