This puzzles was the exchanged puzzle by Wil Strijbos and crafted by Griffoen long long time ago and seems to be pretty rare as it has never popped up at any auctions nor nowhere contrary to supposely rare puzzles that always appear at auction...
Rare means rare, right?...Anyway...
The name of the puzzle suggest that it's composed of plates and we can easily notice that you will have a total of 12 plates to assemble (2 per side of the cube) in an interlocking way.
The box is pretty big but very light. In fact, the material used seems to be not hard woods, but more likely a composite.
If you were to try this puzzle, it would be a more challenging puzzles if it disassemble. Indeed when assembled, it's easy to solve and the first plate is freed after only one move. Then you try to push and puzzle the remaining pieces and at the end: solved!!
Starting with the pieces like below is a way more difficult challenge!
In my opinion, this is an interesting puzzle, I like 2D shapes that make 3D solid at the end. And this puzzle, despite not being made by Strijbos, is associated to him. So in a way, a complete collection of Strijbos' puzzles is nice to have this puzzle.
I am sure that you know Wil's current face. OK. And I am sure you want to see how he looked before. Well, click on the below spoiler button :)
Plate Box is Serhiy Grabarchuk's puzzle design (1978). -- Serhiy
ReplyDeleteTo be more precise:
ReplyDeleteThe Plate Box Puzzle aka Plank Box was created by Serhiy Grabarchuk in 1977; published in his puzzle book in 1991. Then it was Wil Strijbos' puzzle exchange at IPPP17 in San Francisco in 1997; manufactured by GRIFFIOEN Design BV (The Netherlands). Then in 1999 this puzzle was manufactured by the same company once again. -- Serhiy
Many thanks Serhiy for these information. Nice design of yours then! :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you! -- Serhiy
ReplyDelete