Sources page probability recreations

1-4: Brass Boxes with Dial-locks or Clock-faces.

5-6: Common Oblong Snuff Box.

7-8: Flat box-root [sic] Snuff Box.

9: Mahogany double-lidded box.

10: Waterloo Boxes, round reeded.

11: Large Shaving ditto.

12: Tin Pricker Box.

13: Secret Cigar Case, in shape of a book.

14: Larger ditto, for a Case for a Pack of Cards.

15-17: Magic Cigar Case.

18: Japan tinplate Oval Box.

19: Brass Oblong Box.

20-22: Indian Ball Puzzles.

23: French Cube Box.

24: The Puzzling Dice Box.

The 'Ne Plus Ultra' match or snuff box has a lid which opens by pressing on one edge. Slocum, above, says the earliest known example is in silver, produced by Alfred Taylor, silversmiths of Birmingham, and hall-marked 1864.

Roger Fresco-Corbu. Vesta Boxes. Antique Pocket Guides, Lutterworth Press, Guildford, Surrey, 1983. He mentions several trick boxes.

P. 7, fig. 3. Silver box, 1869, opens by sliding the stud on the front.

P. 9, fig. 4 & p. 13. S. Basnett. UK Patent 1212 (26 Jan 1887). Catch on the front allows inner case to pivot out sideways. Figure shows a silver example made by Basnett.

P. 34, fig. 48 & p. 35. Fur covered boxes usually opened by pressing on a stud on the front, concealed by the fur. Figure shows an example from the 1880s.

P. 35, fig. 50 & p. 36. An ivory example, undated, but 2nd half of 19C, from the continent, that opens by pressing the stud on the front.

Peck & Snyder. 1886.

P. 129, no. 8: The deceitful tobacco box.

P. 230, no. 20: The Indian puzzle ball.

P. 230, no. 21: The enchanted tea chest.

P. 231, no. 35: The magic fusee box. (Gravity lock.)

P. 241, no. 122: The Not for Joseph snuff or fusee box.

P. 251, no. 203: The wonderful secret ball.

Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue. 1889. Reproduced in: Joseph J. Schroeder, Jr.; The Wonderful World of Toys, Games & Dolls 1860··1930; DBI Books, Northfield, Illinois, 1977?, p. 27. Puzzle Locomotive Savings Bank. Does not open until it is full of money.

Marshall Field & Co. Catalogue. 1892. Reproduced in: Joseph J. Schroeder, Jr.; The Wonderful World of Toys, Games & Dolls 1860··1930; DBI Books, Northfield, Illinois, 1977?, p. 66.

The Dairy. A money bank with a puzzle padlock.

Presto Trick Bank. Has a trick drawer in which you put a coin which vanishes when you close the drawer. Doesn't really seem to be a puzzle.

Hoffmann. 1893. Chap. 2, pp. 37-68 = Hoffmann-Hordern, pp. 44-54, with photos, shows several items which could be included here.

No. 30: The Psycho Match-box has a gravity lock. Photo on p. 45 shows a wood version, with instructions, by Gamage, 1860-1890, and a brass version, 1860 1890. Hordern Collection, p. 32, shows a wood version with 'edelweiss' pattern, 1860-1900, in two states.

No. 31-37 are other match-boxes. Photos on pp. 46 & 49. Hordern Collection, pp. 33 34.

No. 38-39 are snuff boxes. Photos on p. 51. Hordern Collection, p. 35.

No. 40-41 are puzzle balls. Photos on pp. 53-54. Hordern Collection, p. 36.

Carl P. Stirn. 1894 Trade Price List Toys, .... Reproduced in: Ronald S. Barlow, ed.; The Great American 1879-1945 Antique Toy Bazaar; Windmill Publishing, El Cajon, California, 1998. The Magic Bank for dimes, on p. 99 of Barlow. I believe this is a cylindrical device which will not open until it is filled with dimes -- I have several examples.

James Scott. Chinese puzzles, tricks, and traps. Strand Mag. 20 (No. 120) (Dec 1900) 715 720. Figure 7 shows an object that looks like a three-piece burr but which is a puzzle box made of cardboard or thin wood. It opens by sliding one stick and then pressing its end, when its sides are seen to be hinged and they flex outward. Figures 8 10 show an ivory globular trinket casket, which has three orthogonal rods crossing in the centre. These have to be turned and slid in the right order to open the box.

Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue. 1903. Reproduced in: Joseph J. Schroeder, Jr.; The Wonderful World of Toys, Games & Dolls 1860··1930; DBI Books, Northfield, Illinois, 1977?, p. 120.

Little Gem Pocket Savings Bank. Opens when $5 of dimes have been inserted.

Gem Pocket Savings Bank. Opens when 50 pennies have been inserted.

Butler Brothers (now City Products Corp.). Catalogue. 1914. Reproduced in: Joseph J. Schroeder, Jr.; The Wonderful World of Toys, Games & Dolls 1860··1930; DBI Books, Northfield, Illinois, 1977?, p. 179. "Gem" Pocket Money Banks. Types which open when 20 nickels or 50 dimes are inserted.

M. Adams. Indoor Games. 1912. A puzzle matchbox, pp. 260-261. Simply concealed slide.

Cecil Henry Bullivant. Every Boy's Book of Hobbies. T. C. & E. C. Jack, London, nd [c1912].

Pp. 46-51: How to make a school box with secret compartments. Simple chest with false bottom and hidden release.

Pp. 52-55: How to make a puzzle box. Small box with a gravity lock.

Bartl. c1920. P. 306, no. 25 is very similar to Hoffmann's Psycho match-box.

Butler Brothers. [Toy catalogue], 1921. Reproduced in: Ronald S. Barlow, ed.; The Great American 1879-1945 Antique Toy Bazaar; Windmill Publishing, El Cajon, California, 1998. "Gem" Pocket Savings Banks, on p. 186 of Barlow. One of these may be the same as the item mentioned under Stirn, above.

11.N. THREE KNIVES MAKE A SUPPORT
New section. The pattern of interlocking knives involved is also used in basketry, woven fences, latticework, etc. Indeed, if they are beams with notches, this gives frameworks which can roof a space much wider than any available beam, e.g. Wren's ceiling of the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, and this is used in puzzle pot stands.

Four knives versions: Magician's Own Book; Hoffmann; Blyth; Collins; Bile Beans; Doubleday;

Pacioli. De Viribus. c1500. Ff. 228r - 228v, Part 2, Capitolo. CXXIX. Do(cumento). atozzare .iij tagli de coltelli insiemi (Join together three blades of knives). = Peirani 315. Pacioli says this was shown to him on 1 Apr 1509 (Peirani has misread this as isog) by "due dorotea veneti et u perulo 1509 ad primo aprile ebreo". Peirani transcribes u as un but Dario Uri thinks it is the initial of Perulo's given name. I wonder if 'dorotea' might refer to some occupation, e.g. nuns at S. Dorothy's Convent. In Vienna, the Dorotheum is a huge public auction house where estates are auctioned off. The word 'ebreo' means 'Hebrew', but I cannot see what it refers to.

Cardan. De Subtilitate, Book 17, 1550. = Op. Omnia III, p. 629.

Prévost. Clever and Pleasant Inventions. (1584), 1998. PP. 19-20.

van Etten. 1624. Prob. 6 (6), p. 7 (15 16). Henrion's 1630 Notte cites Cardan.

Hunt. 1631 (1651). Pp. 278-279 (270-271).

Schwenter. 1636. Part 15, exercise 7, pp. 536-537. Three knives.

John Wecker. Op. cit. in 7.L.3. 1660. Book XVIII -- Of the Secrets of Sports: Sticks that mutually support one the other, p. 345. Taken from and attributed to Cardan, with very similar diagram. (I don't know if this material appeared in the 1582 ed.??)

Witgeest. Het Natuurlyk Tover-Boek. 1686. Prob. 74, pp. 56-57. Three pipes shown. Text refers to sticks, etc.

Ozanam. 1694. Prob. 16: 1696: 287-288 & fig. 140, plate 47. Prob. 16 & fig. 35, plate 15, 1708: 364. Prob. 20 & fig. 140, plate 47 (45), 1725: vol. 2, 392-393. Prob. 47 & fig. 50, plate 11, 1778: vol. 2, 87; 1803: vol. 2, 93-94; 1814: vol. 2, 76; Prob. 46, 1840: 235.

Badcock. Philosophical Recreations, or, Winter Amusements. [1820]. P. 15, no. 25 & Frontispiece fig. 2: To place three sticks, or tobacco pipes, upon a table in such a manner, that they may appear to be unsupported by any thing but themselves.

Rational Recreations. 1824. Feat 16, p. 64. Three knives or tobacco pipes.

Endless Amusement II. 1826?