12 Sept 2010


Subject: Puzzle News as of Sept 12. 2010 - New Puzzles in Reserve Limited Edition
Hello All!

This time we are pleased to bring you four special puzzles including one old time classic the Bandelow Jewel and the very beautiful and unique REX Cube original concept fromAndrew Cormier. Plus the 4 layer spinning top with 12 colour German vinyl labels amd its smaller brother the 3 layer spinning top with 12 colour German vinyl labels which is now in stock.

Rex Cube original concept from Andrew Cormier

Once again, we are pleased to offer a revolutionary concept first made by Andrew Cormier. This time he has created a new puzzle entitled "Rex Cube". This puzzle now also has our original 8 axis Octahedron core. But the beauty of the puzzle lies not in the mechanism, but the shapes (or maybe flower) that can be created with just a few simple turns. Reserve yours now to be one of the first kids on the block to own one of these unique, beautiful, outstanding cubes.




To reserve the Puzzles: Please go to: http://mefferts.com/page.php?lang=en&th ... le_release


The Bandelow Jewel
designed by Prof. Christoph Bandelow

If you missed out on Christoph's Magic Jewel in the 1980's now is your chance to get a newly remade version of this piece of puzzle history. This was a truly amazing concept in its time, and I am pleased to report that these have been recently reproduced using the original Octahedron core of ours and has the full backing of Professor Bandelow. This beautiful remake of puzzle history can be found on www.Mefferts.com under the limited release section. Reserve yours now to be sure that you get one this time around.

You will be notified by direct email when these puzzles are ready to ship around the 3rd week of September with your confidential Meffert's price.

We know that our TP friends highly condemn all KO product and we urge you all to stay united and only buy from the Rubiks.com or Mefferts.com sites or their authorized distributors to make sure that the designers receive the recognition that they deserve and agreed to royalties.




To reserve the Puzzles: Please go direct to: http://mefferts.com/page.php?lang=en&th ... le_release


3 Layer Spinning Top

An interesting little puzzle that with its 12 colour high quality German Vinyl stickers and morph function can make numerous patterns and desighns;
Upload pictures of your best shapes and patterns and if added to our Picture gallery you will receive a puzzle of your choice from our web-store to the same value as the one you submitted.




To purchase the Black one: Please go direct to: http://sites.webec.com.hk/meffert2/inde ... roduct=429

To purchase the White one: Please go direct to: http://sites.webec.com.hk/meffert2/inde ... roduct=430

To purchase the Twins: Please go direct to: http://sites.webec.com.hk/meffert2/inde ... roduct=431

Free Air-shipping to anywhere in the world where there is a Post Office will continue.

Please Note: that once you receive our auto-responder email acknowledging your payment, that means that your order is being processed and will be shipped promptly, you should receive it usually within two to three weeks. We only send out Tracking numbers if requested, as their main function is to prevent your local Post Man or others from stealing your puzzle.

This mainly applies to Italy where local theft of parcels has been quite common in the last two years. The Hong Kong Post Office only Guarantees delivery to your country but takes no responsibility for the safety of your local Postal delivery.

We are still receiving a lot of orders with incomplete addresses: Your Zip code and Country name must be clearly shown, if your parcel is returned to us due to incomplete / incorrect address we will charge you the second postage fee which in some case can be more than what you paid for your whole puzzle order.

Our Shopping cart is heavily subsidized and designed not to make a profit but hopefully just break even, so any waste like double shipping is not fair to the other puzzlers that are more careful, we hope that you understand.

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Happy Puzzling
Ulrich and Uwe

I will hopefully get all of these! I hope they'll give a price idea shortly.

By "4 layer spinning top" do you think they mean "4x4x4 Hexagonal Dipyramid"?! I sure hope so!!

I thought the picture was the one being sold. So I went on Mefferts and saw a 4x4 version, sucks to be Monkeydude1313 now.

Robert

What I find irritating is that the mass produced Hexagonal Dipyramids is the angles don't line up: they're not a direct point on the tips.

Really? I personally have got bore buying 3xx3 variants, unless there is something specially about them. And Diansheng aren't known for their high quality products, but the 4x4 HD looks good.

These are the tips which I find irritating:



The tips don't line up to a point, nor do the edges, in the lower image. The Tetra Pyramid, or aXe cube also has the same problem.

That is quite odd
I wonder why they would make them like that.

OOOHHHH , I see. Prototype maybe?

Robert

Rex Cube? Absolutely! I'll be purchasing that one as soon as it is available. Honestly, the rest don't excite me all that much. I've never been a big fan of Dipyramids or the Jewel, really.

I doubt it. If they have it on the mass produced aXe cube, then I'm pretty sure it's designed like that.

It might be a safety thing. Just like the rounded tips that the Pyraminx has these days.

And to add to that:



I'm pretty sure that edge isn't supposed to overlap the side like that. I thought it was supposed to match the opposite side's edge.

link to the 4x4x4, I can't find it anywhere.

http://mefferts.com/page.php?lang=en&th ... le_release

It's on the Reserve Limited Edition section.

Judging by the pictures, I'm fairly certain that the Christoph's Magic Jewel is actually a truncated face-turning octahedron, not a truncated vertex-turning octahedron like the originals.

Also, does anyone know if the Rex cube being sold on Meffert's is the LanLan one, or is it actually produced by Meffert?

I'm fairly sure it's the LanLan one, about 95% sure.

haha yeah dude he got the whole set
but that's what happens with mass produced puzzles

Are you sure of that？If so, it's also the product of Lanlan and therefore Bandelow should not be credited for the design. I donot believe meffert could make such a mistake.

I too doubt that. In the bulletin we can read:



so it should be corner-turning (It wouldn't be the 1st time Mefferts put the wrong name to a puzzle, though).

Just look at the pictures on Mefferts. If it were vertex-turning, the square piece would be attached to the four surrounding triangle pieces, as it is all one part. In the image, you can clearly see a seam between the pieces that should not be there if it were vertex turning.

Also, octahedral core = 8 axes = FTO

face turning magic jewel by mefferts ...wow

(photo by katsmom)

I was certain for a minute that you were showing me a face turning AND vertex turning jewel...

Oh well, a man can dream...

BOTH are on the picture...

I'm in the same dream and wondering if its a dream... Are we sure this isn't one puzzle with both types of turns? It's a MUST have if it is...

Carl

OK, lets make it clear.

Christopher's Magic Jewel is a truncated Magic Octahedron.
This puzzle has eight axis, making it a FTO.
The Truncated Face Turning Octahedron is a Tony Fisher design, I'm pretty sure it is anyways.

Regarding the Jewel I believe there has been an error. I will contact Uwe to find out.

So was the original Bandelow Magic Jewel 3-axis (truncated magic octahedron) or 4-axis (truncated fto)???

Ditto for the Meffert's repro. Truncated magic Octahedron or Truncated FTO???

BTW, it would be lovely to have a matching set, one of each

The original Christoph's Magic Jewel is a truncated vertex-turning octahedron, i.e. with the trivial tips removed.

But I really like the idea of turning on both the square (truncated vertices-come faces) and hexagonal faces!

All of this news sounds very good indeed, but the best of this is the legitimate Drew's Rex Cube.

OK, I won't twist my new puzzles until I have them!

What does everyone think of this photo that I found at Meffert's?




Also, Tony, what did you find out from Meffert's concerning the truncated octahedron Jewel puzzle that they will be selling? Will they be selling your face-turning puzzle, the corner-turning Christoph's Jewel remake, or a puzzle with mechanism that can turn on both face and corners as some have speculated? If it is your face-turning puzzle, I hope you're having luck dealing with the royalties/labeling credit with Meffert's.

Doug M.

Here's the truncated octagon image from Meffert's posted in my above message in case they change the photo at the link address.

The right photo is actually one I sent to Uwe to show the differences. I don't know what the final decision is though there are a some added complications concerning this issue. I certainly do not claim any ownership of such a simple "mod" and expect no royalties from anyone who happened to make it.
At no point has a puzzle been mentioned that turns like both puzzles. I think that is one for you CAD guys to come up with.

That would be an awesome puzzle, but not very likely.

Who is the true inventor of the face turning octohedron (or truncated octohedron) then? I believe Douglas Hoftender discussed the possibility of a face turning octohedron in his Scientific American article back in the 80's, but a functioning puzzle has only available within the last year or two.

Doug M.

Unofficial update- A mistake was made regarding the movement of these similar looking puzzles. Uwe now plans to supply the truncated Magic Octahedron type which have the same movement but are bigger than Christoph's originals. Please give him time to sort this out.

Oh... I was wanting a Face Turning Truncated Octahedron. Nevermind though, I hope they'll sell them in the future.

You can buy them elsewhere, I kind of lost track of whether they are KOs though.

They're a copy of your puzzle, so you can decide whether it's a KO.

I guess but 99.9% of the design and mechanism is not mine so even I wouldn't claim that one.

The leftmost of those three is probably an error. See how the piece with the square face is not attached to the adjacent pieces with triangular faces -- that means it's almost certainly a (truncated) face-turning octahedron.

OK, it looks like Tony is saying the same, and I agree with him: let's give Uwe time to straighten it out!

It's Douglas Hofstadter. He had two Scientific American articles about Rubik's cubes. You are probably referring to the second one which discusses some of the related puzzles (Pyraminx, megaminx, Skewb, etc.) and plans for future puzzles. I don't remember reading about a face-turning octahedron, but obviously that was many years ago, and I could have forgotten.

I got some information about the FTO in another thread; maybe that is helpful. OK, just looked it up, and it was a pointer to an earlier thread about the original FTO. (In short, Dave Litwin says that Mr. Shieh is the inventor.)

One that I definitely haven't forgotten from Hofstadter's article is: he discussed plans for a "Senior Pyraminx" (I'm not sure that was its official name). It was to be like a regular pyraminx, but could also turn along edges (presumably by 180 degrees). Nowadays, it is easy just to say Gelatinbrain 5.3.1. Has anyone made this puzzle?