Hanayama puzzles, yet another update on the museum, and a job advertisement

Carrying on from my recent article in CFF, I would like to post a bit more about Hanayama.  I'm not an expert in the company, but do have a bit of insight and would like to provide it in today's blog posting.  The first thing I would like to do is to post a list of puzzles and their designers.  I've seen many people asking about these and thought it might be helpful information to have it posted here.  

Hanayama works with a number of designers the most prolific of which has to be Akio Yamamoto (Dot 2017, Dolce 2002, Baroq 2001, Amour 1992, Radix 2005, Helix 2009, Vortex 2008, Seabream 2010, Shark 2010, Claw 2010, Starfish 2019, Seahorse 2010, Reef 2010).  

Of course, the first puzzle designer was was Nob Yoshigahara (ABC 1983, Flag 1994, Horse 1984, Star 1983, S&S 1984, Ring 2000, Elk 1986, Devil 1994, Laby 1997, News 2003, Plate 2005, Cage 1997, Key 1983, W-U 1995).  Many of these were old designs which were later produced by Hanayama. 

Other designers include Oskar van Deventer (O’Gear 2002, L’oeuf 2004, Disc 2001, Twist 2013, Möbius 2015, Duet 2005, Equa 2008, Marble 2009, H&H 2010, Chain 2002, Cuby 2005, Nutcase 1987), 

Vesa Timonen (Loop 2007, Hook 2009, Square 2010, Ufo 2019, Donuts 2011, Keyhole 2015, Cylinder 2013, Dial 2016, Infinity 2016, Slider 2019, Valve 2021),

Marcel Gillen (Pawn 2015, Rook 2015, Knight 2015, Bishop 2015, King 2015, Queen 2015),

Kyoo Wong (Delta 2013, U&U 2014, Trinity 2018, Rotor 2019, Snow 2020), 

Jin-Hoo Ahn (G&G 2013, Padlock 2016, Hourglass 2018), 

Bram Cohen (Galaxy 2014, Marble 2009, Rattle 2010, Cake 2016), 

Kirill Grebnev (Harmony 2012, Shift 2017) , 

Dmitri Pevnitskiy (Harmony 2012), 

Edi Nagata (Coil 2011), 

Serhiy Grabarchuk (Coaster 2006), 

Eldon Vaughn (Enigma 2004), 

Harry Nelson (Spiral 2003), 

Scott Elliot (Love 2018, Diamond 2016), 

John Lynn (Bike 1994), 

James Dalgety (Medal 2009, Cricket 2002) 

Joseph Litle (Violin 2003), 

Andrei Ianov (Arrows 2018), 

Mineyuki Uyematsu (Quartet 2007, Hexagon 2015), 

Ken Walker (Spiral 2003), 

Jose Grant (Cast Ring 2 2004), 

Yoshi Kotani (Shift 2017), 

Yuta Akira (Box 2012).

Timothy Collins (Dice 2021)

There are also a number of puzzles that are no longer produced.  These include Oskar’s Key, Bike, Cast Key 1, Winnie the Pooh Horse, and the Ultraman marble. There were also a few puzzles produced in the early days that were much larger than they are now. Bike, W-U, Nutcase, News and Radix.  Of course, even though many of these are no longer being produced, they can still be purchased through different online retailers. If you notice any that I have missed, or mis-dated, please let me know.

The company experimented with plating the pieces in different colors.  Again we are fortunate  to have a number of these color variations in our collection.  

Over the years we have had the pleasure to visit not only the offices of Hanayama, but also a number of the factories.  We have seen the entire process from smelting to final packaging.  Photographs of our first trip can be found at My facebook album.

At first the company made molds of wood or clay.  Around 2010 they changed to puzzles made by CAD and 3D printing.  Many of the new puzzles have been made in CAD first, then produced using Injection Molding.  One puzzle, Cast Möbius was produced using spin casting and silicon molds.  A number of the puzzles are made of cut steel-Slider, Snow, and Hexagon are a few examples. The puzzles are mostly made of a cast zinc alloy. Once the puzzles are cast, they are removed from the sprue and hand sanded to remove any sharp edges.  After this, they are tumbled to remove any further imperfections before moving on to the metal plating process.  When we visited the Hanayama factory, we counted no less than 12 people who touched each puzzle during the manufacturing and 6 people in the boxing process.  When you think of it, they are incredibly inexpensive puzzles.  

Hanayama Cast puzzle was renamed Huzzle in 2015.  It is a combination of Japanese words that means “hugs and puzzle” (actually, these don’t look too Japanese to me).  Kyoo told me it is easier for Japanese to pronounce.  But then he teases me a lot so I don’t know if that is truthful.  George is reminding me of a time that Kyoo sent us to the wrong train station in China when we were going to go visit his factory.  No taxi driver would pick us up when we got off in the middle of nowhere. George had to run out in the street, stop the taxi by jumping on the hood of the car and then jumping in the cab before the driver could run away.  When we returned from the factory that night, the train station we should have gotten off at was 1 block away instead of 5 miles! What a jokester. 

 

Prototyped Puzzles

We have had the good fortune to be involved with Hanayama and their staff in one way or another for many years.  George was an early prototyper for the cast puzzles.  He worked on 14 puzzles in the early stages.  These include:  L’oeuf, H&H, Nutcase, Loop, Donut, Medallion, Duet, Square, Rattle, Twist, Hook, O’gear, Möbius, and Marble. This comes to around 19% of the puzzles produced.  I’ve been friends with the chief engineer in Hong Kong for many, many years. Because of this, we have been lucky enough to have many Hanayama prototypes in our collection.  In the photo below, only three were not made by George.  The Radix, Delta, and Keyhole were all gifts.  The Radix is made of compressed paper and is very solid. It was given to George when he held a puzzle exhibition in Sonoma, California.  Delta and Keyhole were given to me by Kyoo during visits to his office.  In the earlier days, George used a laser cutter to make the prototypes.  Later on of course, he went to 3D printing.  

Prototypes

All of these are on display and play terms for visitors to Puzzle palace.  Many of the puzzles prototyped by George are available for visitors to choose from the treasure chest.  The cast marble seems to be the favorite of most people.  

On to the weekly update of the museum build.  As of Friday, all of the cabinets have been placed and mounted.  The pool heater and pump are now both working beautifully. The outdoor recycling/garbage closet has been covered and is awaiting roofing.  The garage floor has cured and we are now just waiting on the puzzles to arrive.  We are more than ready for them.  

One container has been sitting down at Port Everglades since the 14th of May, the other is still on its way to Halifax.  In the mean time, I have shifted all materials from the main rooms so that we have area to place the moving-boxes when they come in.  I have developed a display system and each room in the museum will hold a specific type of puzzle. Being me, I have Roxified (color coded) the manifesto so that we know which room each puzzle should go into upon entering the house.  This will make the process of unboxing and displaying much quicker.  

I have also purchased a new camera and light box to photograph the puzzles as they are opened.  George has developed a cataloging system to ease the problem of display in the online database he is slowly working on.  Expect it to be completed sometime around July 2022 and be online and searchable by Christmas of the same year.  

When we contacted James about obtaining this, we were not thinking.  It was the most whimsical of purchases one has ever made.  Well, we've managed to accomplish nothing short of a miracle.  We managed to purchase a house, build it out, and have it all but ready for installation of the puzzles in less than four months time.  

Next up?  Hiring a couple of students to aid me in the photographing and cataloging of the puzzles.  Does anyone want a summer job?  Photographic knowledge required. Use of Macbook necessary.  Your own vehicle is a must. 6-8 hours a day from date of hire until puzzles are all on display or end of summer holiday. We prefer a student who is looking for experience. Pay?  Who needs money when you have puzzles? :) Oh yes, room and board included. I'm a very good cook and you can't beat the accommodations.

Special post for 3d crystal puzzle collectors

As many of you may know, I have an almost complete collection of crystal puzzles.  I've been collecting them since they first came out in 1977. Basically there are currently 3 companies that make these: Hanayama, Beverly/Jeruel, and YongJun.  There are others that you will find on the market, but they aren't as prevalent.  You can read about our collection here.  Please bear in mind, that post is almost a year old and I've had quite a few lunches since then.

Many times over the last year or two I've been asked where I purchase them from.  This post will tell you sites around the world that I go to to purchase my puzzles.  Be warned, the list is extensive and while the prices of the puzzles may seem very good on some of them, there is always a trade-off:  Time for delivery, or cost of shipping.  As a disclaimer, I don't get any form of compensation from any of these companies.  Clicking on each of the company names in the list below will take you to that webpage.

1) Amazon

2) eBay  - caveat emptor

3) Plaza Japan

4) Walmart

5) Barnes & Noble

6) Kohls

7) Are You Game

8) Macy's

9) Amazon Japan

10) Jayz

11) Mr. Puzzle

12) Sloyd

13) Wish

14) Mercari

15) AliExpress

16) TaoBao Focus

17) Bits and pieces

18) Puzzle Master

19) Hobby Link

20) Buyee

21) Target

22) Brilliant Puzzles

23) Puzzle Warehouse

24) shopee.tw

25) Megacuber

26) rc-today

27) 3DCrystal Puzzles

28) LBJ.tw

29) carousell.my

30) carouseell.sg

31) Soviet Express

There are of course many other places you can purchase these puzzles, but I think 31 is enough. I can't give away all my secrets. If searching on places like Amazon or eBay, don't forget to check the other countries.  I've bought from the UK, Germany, Spain... 

It also helps to have friends in many countries around the world.  My puzzling friends know I like these things and they send me puzzles when they find them.  

Some of the websites will need a reciever/shipper to send them to you.  I've had great success with these companies and have yet to have a problem.  

There are so many crystal puzzles out there.  Our collection has over 500 completed pieces and probably another 100 unfinished pieces and yet I'm still missing around 20 or so.  The hunt goes on.  I wish you all the best of luck in your hunt for puzzles.  

Finally!

Way back in 2003 I was searching the toy shops in Hong Kong and came across this bag of seven 2x2x2 puzzles.  They were the Gundam Rubik's Cube series made by palbox.  I took a photo, sent an email to a friend and asked what he thought about them.  The price was rather steep at the time.  HK$100 each.  I guess that comes out to around US$90.  His reply was if I didn't want them to buy them for him and he'd double the price I paid.  Well, this sent off alarm bells as it were and I purchased the set.  The seller said they were so cheap because Zaku was missing.  Well, for the past 18 years I have been hunting for that Zaku.  This past month a fellow twisty puzzler gave me a heads up and said it would go too high for his wallet.  I lucked out and no one bid against me and Zaku has finally come to join his fellow robots. I won't say how much it cost, but given what I paid for the first 7, overall, it was not too expensive.  One less hunt for me.

My next purchase this weeks was a complete set of the Hanayama Cast Puzzle Micro!'s.  Now this is a silly purchase.  I have all but one piece.  I was missing the cast enigma micro and when I saw this set come up, I jumped on it.  I think this set came out to something like US$8 per piece.  I couldn't pass that up.  Now we have extras to add to the treasure chest.  

And now on to the progress of the museum.  This week we had more workers at the big house than here.  The A/C guys moved around a bunch of pipes, laid some flooring, and just really cleaned up the attic space.  We now have another 200 square feet or so of additional storage.  

The museum saw a few art pieces placed, the garage painted in preparation for the epoxy flooring, and a whole lot of Kallax boxes were built.  I had one guy here on Monday to paint the ceilings, but I decided that placement of the Berrocal paintings was much more important.  Scott was meticulous in his placement.  I told him what was in my head and he placed them exactly as I wanted them.  This wall never sees direct sunlight, and we have placed the upper eyeballs so they reflect down on the paintings without having a glare from the glass.  

I framed and George hung a Escher-esque 3 layer jigsaw puzzle.  It was meant to have a piece of plexiglass between each of the layers, but we realized that it looks so much better without them.  The obvious place for this was above the Escher-like stairs we have in the museum. 

George went wild and put together 24 Kallax boxes for the master bedroom walls.  It will be perfect when finished.  I just love the placement of them.  If you stand in the bedroom and look at the reflection in the glass wall while gazing upon the 26' vase wall, the boxes blend into each other.  When they are filled, it will be stunning.  In this room we decided to stack the boxes right up to the ceiling where we can.  The boxes have not been mounted yet so what you see in the photo is not yet completed. Forgive the messy bed.  We are between houses right now.  Everything is a mess.  George has assembled an additional 26 boxes to be placed in the garage.  He's an absolute pro at this now.  

We've been told that 720 packing boxes have been completed.  All but 3 cabinets and 14 packed boxes have been picked up.  This is very exciting for us.  We expect them to be on the ship soon and hopefully they will be in Miami by the beginning of summer.  James said he figured it will take us 3 months with occasional helpers to unpack all of the boxes.  Our plan is to head over to the local university, hire two student helpers in the photography department to photograph while George unpacks and I place puzzles.  It is going to be a real project.  I'm beginning to think we may not be fully done in time for Boca Bash but that will make it all the more fun for our guests.  I'm hopeful it will be all done by the time we have set for our museum opening for the club in November.  

Next week we will have more painters in the house, but that is it for a few weeks while we wait for a white epoxy base to be put into the garage floor.  Our winning competition design will be placed over the top of this.  We really want these to pop out at you when looked at.  It seems that the recent weather has caused havoc with all shipping.  We are a victim of this as well.  Our general contractors are filling in jobs when they get the supplies they need so we have been put to the back burner.  This is fine with us, we are helping a friend by giving him the work, and it gives us a break from the museum.  I'm actually looking forward to this downtime when I can just move back home and enjoy Puzzle Palace. 

Crystal puzzles

When I was in Hong Kong, I used to attend the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair every year.  While there, I got to know the HK representatives of Jeruel (Beverly).  Through them, I acquired many different puzzles.    They made Kinato puzzles to begin with, and although these didn't sell well, I did get a few variations of them to be posted on at a later date.  For this blog post though, I will only be discussing their Crystal Puzzles.

Jeruel (Beverly) is not the only company to make Crystal Puzzles.  Artbox also makes Crystal Puzzles, as  does Bandai, Disney, Hanayama,  Happywell, Huaxinda, Junghwan, Ling Zhi Crystal Blocks, Magnif, Megahouse, Mini (cooper), Takara Tony, Yanoman, and Yong Jun Toys.  The two most prolific designers are of coarse Jeruel and Hanayama.

A bit of trivia regarding these two companies is the gentleman's agreement on what types of puzzles they make.  Hanayama makes Disney, Jeruel makes all the rest.  Sounds like a fair deal to me.  Yanoman made small keychain sized puzzles, Disney of course makes Disney characters-thus far only BB8 and R2D2.  Bandai makes Gundam and Hello Kitty Crystal puzzle type characters.  Happywell makes Marvel comics, Miffy, and a variety of vehicles.  Yong Jun Toys makes a lot of copies, but they have begun to branch out and make a new range of puzzles that have not been seen before.  

Our collection to date has 309 puzzles with another 16 on order and 12 more that I am hunting down.  As I am typing this, two more puzzles came in to assemble.

These puzzles are not for the average puzzler. They are more of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.  I started on them when my daughter was young as a way to get her involved in puzzling.  Since then I've managed to collect all that have been designed by the major companies and am now in a state of simply adding more as they come out.  For the longest time I would assemble 2-4 puzzles over lunch.  When this pandemic hit and we decided to stay at home, I realized this would be a good time to complete the rest of the puzzles that were not finished.  The majority of them took around 30 minutes to assemble. Some of the larger puzzles took the better part of the day.  

These puzzles range in size from 9 to 104 pieces.  I would have to say Zodiac puzzles were the poorest quality.  There are two that I had to purchase again because the pieces didn't fit and broke the first time.  The worst to assemble was the guitar, the easiest I suppose is the heart or diamond as they are mirror image sides.  The Beverley 'horses' on the top shelf look very pretty, but are rather poor quality in my opinion. The wings are fiddly to attach and don't really stay on well.  The Yanoman keychains are quite difficult as the pieces are so tiny. 

The earliest puzzles to come out were the Magnif puzzles in 1977.  They produced the apple (red and white versions), an egg, and the 'love heart' which was a heart inside a cube.  These can still be found on eBay or other sites.  Jeruel began producing crystal puzzles in 2004 and Hanayama began in 2010.  Almost immediately the Chinese companies began to make copies of these. 

And if anyone knows where to get the Hello Kitty keychain, I'd love one.  

The display case we have these in is backlit with Hue light strips plus.  There is one base pack and 8 extensions in the cabinet.  I love that I can change the color of them with my mood.  White light dimmed to 50% works best though.  The cabinet came mirrored to begin with as did the rest of the house.  This particular cabinet is above the bedroom wet bar.  We decided it would be better to have the crystal puzzles here than bar glasses.  Just a warning, the rest of this post is very photo heavy.  Enjoy.