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.