Bulgarian barrel

I don't know the name of this puzzle in English so ill just give it a descriptive name. I first saw this one on twisty puzzles back in September of 2012. A guy was offering it up for trade, but before I got the chance to make an offer, it was gone. I gave up hope of finding this one, but then one day my friend Otis and I were chatting and this one came up. He had managed to get one through the Beijing Collectors Club and was kind enough to tell me how to go about getting my own. Thank you Otis!

A little background first. The puzzle was invented in Bulgaria by an engineer named Petyo Petkov in 2011. If you thought it was older, you're as mistaken as I was. Hopefully you didn't get suckered into buying the "vintage" ones off our least favorite auction site. There is a company in Bulgaria that sells them, but sadly they don't ship out of country. To get this, you'll need to go through a middleman.

So what does this puzzle do? It has eight different colored sections which are cut in half.  Each half is identical save for the pips on one side.  You can tell if you have it correct because one side has a pip on each piece.  If It's still mucked....you have pips and no pips mixed up.  We don't want that now do we?

Around the middle there is a ring.  It is divided in half-part black and part white.  This doesn't do much except to lock the pieces into position if you will.  It's there I guess as a hand grip.

As for the solving experience, well, it solves like a cheese with an extra couple of quadrants.  That's the easy one to use for explanation as it's been remade now in China.  The cheese I mean. Or, if you prefer, it solves like a UFO.  Not as easy to get a hold of, but still as much fun to play with.

My overall impression is it's a nice pretty one to look at.  I love the way the colors of the plastic have a glittery effect.  Very pretty and shiny too!  My photos don't really do it justice.  As for solving experience, as I said in the paragraph above, it's like others out there with the exception of those locking rings.  Because they are so hard to get, I'd stick with the cheese.  Same puzzle, simpler to obtain.