This is is the puzzle that I have been looking for the longest so far. It's been around 10 years since I started looking. The search brought me to Marcel Gillen a couple of years ago, and I'd found out that most Arancia Meccanica puzzles in collections around the world are from him. He had found them in Northern Italy sometime at the end of eighties, and he had bought all that were in the store. Since that time he had sold or traded all his extra copies.

Well, now I've become a happy owner of this puzzle. I've made a handful of pictures, so please enjoy.

Also, as it is often the case I could not resist and try to disassemble it. Luckily I was able to do that without any harm to the puzzle. It's all in the pictures. Probably, this can provide an answer to the issue of sunken round buttons as discussed in an older topic about this puzzle. There is a ledge inside that does not let the button sink deep inside. It appears to me that in Hendrik's puzzle this ledge had been sawed off somehow as can be seen in the middle picture here.

Thank you for the photos! Mine is filthy and I was terrified of taking it apart. Now I can.

Indeed, such pictures really make looking at this puzzle seem all the more real.

Another puzzle mystery solved by Aleksey!

Many thanks for the explanation and the nice internal photos!


Pantazis

I am very fortunate and have this puzzle. Nice item in the collection.
Unfortunately mine only has the red amd black beads. Even though I received it with box and instructions.

IF - there is a very very very slim chance that someone out there has a spare set of the coloured beads that they don't want anymore I would certainly be interested. (You never know - strange things do happen sometimes. I have certainly been surprised in the past with my collection.)

Regards

Anthony

Really rare puzzle! Thanks for making such a great post to us. The pictures are really pretty too!