Extremely Puzzling - Goetz Schwandtner's Puzzles

On this page some extremely puzzling objects are displayed: My private puzzle collection consisting of a wide range of three-dimensional puzzles, from industrial produced Rubik's Cube like puzzles to my custom builds, from Philos wood puzzles to excellent limited edition puzzles from MrPuzzle and Puzzlewood, and not to forget the Japanese Himitsu Bakos, including some equisite works of the Karakuri Creation Group. Note that you won't find any jigsaw puzzles on these pages, may they be two or three dimensional.

In my gallery, the puzzles are grouped into three categories:

Twisty Puzzles	Permutation puzzles of various kinds, mostly made of synthetic materials. Famous puzzles in this category are the Rubik's Cube, the Nintendo Billion Barrel and the Fifteen Game.
Assembly Puzzles	Various assembly and interlocking puzzles, mostly wooden, with the goal to disassemble and reassemble them again. Inlcudes famous puzzles like the Soma Cube, Chinese Knots, Kumikis, Puzzle Boxes and a collection of interlocking burrs, like the MkII or the Van der Poel burr.
Other Puzzles	Other puzzles and games -- everything that does not fit into one of the other categories. Representatives of this category are Tangram, Kun Phan, and a bottle Puzzle.

Please click on one of the category names above to see a graphical overview of the category. To get a full list of all my puzzles, click the following link:

Puzzle List	List of all puzzles, which may be ordered by name, type and manufacturer.

For a more systematic overview, group pages will show groups of similar puzzles, with some details on their connections:

News/Updates:

Added on 2012-01-21

A very interesting puzzle just released recently: Washer Cylinder by Wil Strijbos. From the outside it is just an aluminum cylinder, but inside lies the real fun (which I will see once solved). It's a bit shorter than it's older brother, the Aluminum Cylinder.

Added on 2012-01-14

A fascinating puzzle from Alfons Eyckmans: Dirty Dozen -- A 12 piece burr? A 16 piece burr? -- Well, both of it! One from the outside and one from the inside.
Added later the day: Meanwhile I have received mail from the Karakuri group and know the name of the X-Mas present I got: Pump. After a look at the overview sheet I am very comfortable with my choice of present.
Added even later the same day: Today I finally started a feature on this site that was on my wishlist for long: Group pages. Starting with the most famous group for this page (I believe), I will add more groups occasionally, providing an overview of puzzles that may have something in common -- may it be obvious or not.

Added on 2012-01-13

A package with nice puzzles from Cubicdissection: Rattle Box and Ribbons Puzzle by Tom Jolly and a Havanna's Box #1 -- guess what's in it!
A very interesting puzzle came from Australia, a Hexadecimal Puzzle (reproduction by Bill Wylie).

Added on 2012-01-06

The first package this year came from Hong Kong: Star Minx II and DaYan Gem IV

Added on 2011-12-30

Probably the last update for this year, but one covering several areas:

From my puzzle friend Michel van Ipenburg I got a nice Constantin puzzle: Bonbon

The gallery is growing bigger and bigger, and it might take a long time to load and the many images may slow down some browsers (e.g. mobile devices), I decided to overhaul my gallery creation script after it was running fine for more than three years now.

The picture galleries are now split into several pages and you can navigate between them using the navigation bar on top. For those of you who would still like to view all puzzles of a type, just click on [All] in the navigation bar.
The list view now offers the possibility to jump to the first puzzle starting with a selected character, same for manufacturer, and jump to first puzzle of a category
I have tested the new script and web site, but there may be bugs. If you find some or have suggestions, please do let me know. Thanks

Added on 2011-12-26

Just before Christmas I received my nice present from the Karakuri Club. Spoiler warning: If you are still waiting for yours and if it would be by Miyamoto, don't read on! I don't know the name of it and will update the gallery once I have received it. The puzzle looks a bit like one of these old fashioned Scales whose base has then been put in a box, but see for yourself: X-mas Present. It is not trivial, but I have managed to open it already. Now I have to figure out in detail how the mechanism and solution works.

Added on 2011-12-17

From the new Online Shop "Arteludes" featuring puzzles crafted by Maurice Vigouroux, a package with some very high quality puzzles, both in craftmanship and design: Burr in Cage (in nice yellow Difou wood), Phelan, Xenon, and for X-mas Six pieces Star

Special update on 2011-10-22

With my last update, my gallery crossed the line of 900 items and so I decided to decide to pick out a special one from this update: A 7-ary Kugellager which (to my knowledge) is the first 7-ary puzzle and has level 4802.
Of course, I have added the puzzle to my paper about n-ary puzzles and I am proud to present a new version today: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!

Other/Older updates:

Can be found on the update history page

Hints:

Hints: If you need solution hints to any puzzle in my gallery, feel free to e-mail me. My e-mail address can be found on my homepage.