Confetto box

You may wonder why I put the box and not the picture of the puzzle as a first picture...Well it's because the box is beautiful: I like the contrast of the colors and when you look at the box, you know that there will be a great puzzle inside. And you're right to think so!

This confetto box was designed by Iwahara (a famous craftman who belongs to the Karakuri Group) and produced as a X-mas present in 2008 for the members of the Karakuri Group.
Becoming a member of the Karakuri group allows you to get a book with all the pictures of the puzzles made by the craftmen (only when you're a new member), to get reductions in prices for the puzzles that are on sales and finally to get one X-mas present. If you want more X-mas presents, you have to pay more. The first year it is more expensive, especially because you receive the book (you receive it about 1-2 weeks after you've paid for the membership). The next years are less expensive.
The shipping is free for the presents, but perhaps you may have to pay custom fees if they don't declare the puzzles as gifts (they don't like to do that...). Because of that, it happens that I get caught by the customs...and for sure the price of puzzles increased a lot... :-(
What you have to know about the X-mas presents is also the fact that you don't know what you will get. It's the surprise!! So you may very happy or perhaps a bit disapointed...And you pay almost one year before getting your puzzles. You will have to be patient...but you're used to that because you're a puzzler :-)

If you don't know which craftman to choose, Iwahara is always a good value, and his puzzles are usually very good. This one is no exception: the quality is superb, the finish is very good, the panels move smoothly, the wood has an handsome red color. Nothing bad to say about that.

There are 2 secret "chambers" to discover.
I put below 2 pictures of the inside the puzzle, but it does not give any hint on how to open the puzzle, so don't worry it's not a spoiler at all. It is just for you to see the quality of the internals. That's a great job!!

The symbols (star and moon) are useful to remember which panel goes to which compartment.
The first compartment is easy to find, the second one is much more difficult because you need to learn some new moves. Note that only 2 panels can be removed, the other 4 cannot.

I love this puzzle and if you find one, don't hesitate and buy it, you won't regret it. In my opinion, it's one of the best Iwahara's (even if I have not tried all his puzzles). Moreover, the difficulty is good: not too easy as (too) many Karakuri's puzzles and not too difficult, so that you enjoy solving it not only once, but many times.
Iwahara also designed a confetto box 2 that I will make a review of it later on. I think that it's better to have played before with confetto box 1 to better understand confetto box 2.

This puzzle is very sought (like many old Iwahara's), so the price may be pretty high, and at least much more expensive than the price of one X-mas present. So when you buy X-mas presents, you make good investments (even if you don't intend to sell them)!