They sent the package with priority mail and it took less than 1 week to come, that's a top quality service, you cannot deny it, and if the quality is as good, then I understand why so many people only say goods things about Pelikan!
I had a bit of time to take some quick pictures during the week-end and was luck enough that it's was pretty sunny (or not to rainy, depending your point of view).
That's my first order from Pelikan. Yes, I know I should be ashamed, but well I have never been a super fan of burr puzzles, and most of the puzzles they craft are burr puzzles. So guess what I ordered?.....burr puzzles!!
No, just joking, honestly....
I ordered the 3 wooden ball puzzles: convolution ball, Mochalov ball and the slideways ball
 | |||
| Back left: convolution ball / Middle: Mochalov ball / Front: slideways ball |
Three things that you notice first: they all come with wooden stand, which is very very appreciable since you may not always have stands for your puzzles (that usually stand whithout stands). The second thing you notice is the size of the puzzle: not small at all (9cm diamater for the 2 biggest). And finally you also notice the quality of the work!
The convolution ball designed by Stewart Coffin is made out of wenge and maple, the look is absolutely wonderful due to the the checkered pattern, the fit is perfect (well, same comment for the two other puzzles!!) which makes the solving process not easy at all. Indeed it's so precisely cut, not too tight (but tight enough not to fall apart by itself) and not loose at all. I managed to disassemble 2 pieces, but for the third one I wonder how to proceed, it's a puzzle after all ;-) I have not considered yet rotations which seem to be required (no spoil, it's written on Pelikan's website), that may explain why I am blocked...
But no worries, I will win!!! I just need to try it again :-)
The ball in the middle is designed by Leonid Mochalov, a Russian puzzle designer who has invented many puzzles and luckily some companies (because Leonid does not produce puzzles) like Pelikan decided to produce them. That would be a pitty it you see many designs, but never the puzzles...
What strikes you is the diversity of woods used: 8 different nice woods (purpleheart, wenge, mapple, padouk, american walnut, acacia, bubingo and jatoba). As far as I know, I don't know any other puzzles made with so many different woods, and these are not common woods. They are colorful, almost "precious", just judge by yourself below:
Wenge is one of my favourite woods, I love the grain and the natural lines of it.
Fit, quality and craftmanship are still on the top level for this puzzle!
The difficulty is first to find out which is (or are) the piece to take first. Then, it's pretty straight forward, but that's not so easy to start. It's more complicated to reassemble but not impossible at all. The design is clever, which makes the pieces hold to each other and not fall apart easily.
I think this is nice to have made another puzzle ball with different wood and different pattern, so that you can reallt differentiate which is the Mochalov one from the convolution ball.
Definitely a nice pair!
I could not have avoided the last puzzle ball made with simpler woods (cherry, acacia, mapple) but with the most original stand which results in making you believe that you have a real golf ball in front of you! Yeah, you have the ball you have the stand...Humm but I doubt you would like to use this wooden puzzle as a golf ball: too big and too beautiful of course ;-)
I like to have stand for the puzzle, but I also appreciate to have the name of the puzzle, of the designer and of the puzzle company written on the stand, and all three are gathered here.
This puzzles was designed by Ray Stanton and belongs to a series of 3 coordination-motion puzzles (I dont know what is the thris one, by the way) with all the same kind of mechanism but each time in a different shape, which makes the puzzles challenging even if you managed to solve the same with the cube shape for example.
This puzzle is tricky, tricky enough to trick you each time you try to solve it!
You need to push on specific pieces and usually there is one or 2 fingers wrongly places that prevent the pieces from moving. But once you find where to press, all the 3 pieces slide together! Very fun to play with. You can also solve the puzzle is you hold one piece, but you need to find the correct piece, not easy to see where a piece "starts" and where it "ends"...
And if you're really puzzles, well you can also spin the puzzle and the pieces will slide apart by themselves.
To conlude, very nicely crafted puzzles, super good quality. No wonder why Pelikan is one of the favourite wooden suppliers!!!
In case you're not familiar with Pelikan puzzles -your turn to be ashamed! - then look HERE.
They have still some puzzles on sale, but don't hesitate too long...
No comments:
Post a Comment