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Frying Pan
Something rather different this month, and two for the price of one. Both the items are rotating mazes, but very different to each other. The yellow one is produced by Pentangle in England, quite a change from there more well known range of interlocking puzzles. I think that this is still available from them. The puzzle clearly gets its name from its passing resemblance to a familiar kitchen implement. The puzzle is made of plastic, with a transparent plastic lid which rotates around a central rivet. The puzzle is played by inserting a metal ball through the hole near the centre. The object is clearly to rotate the two halves of the puzzle to allow the ball to exit by way of the frying pan handle. Good for a couple of pints!!
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The blue maze is marked ‘MADE IN TAIWAN’ and I think it came from Hamley’s toy shop in London’s Regent Street in the late 1990s. I’ve never seen another one anywhere since, although the Cleverwood website has them for sale, for a couple of dollars. It's good. The ball cannot be removed from the puzzle. There are two diametrically opposite marks on the base showing start and finish points. Again the maze is manipulated by turning the transparent top, which is clipped inside the base. This maze is considerably harder, and I recommend it to anyone who ever sees one. It is designed with great precision, and I think you can see that the maze layout is totally different to the Frying Pan puzzle. I cannot overestimate its degree of difficulty. It is very much harder to plan ahead with this beast. As with many mazes, just because you can see the goal just ahead, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to go halfway around the maze to reach that goal,
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