A Group of Six Polycube Puzzles, Known as Impuzzables

Description:

Each of these six colorful plastic puzzles is made up of groups of small cubes that can be arranged into a larger cube. The puzzles fit into clear plastic boxes. The objects have been assigned the following subindex numbers:

2012.0091.01.01 - brown

2012.0091.01.02 - green

2012.0091.01.03 - blue

2012.0091.01.04 - yellow

2012.0091.01.05 - red

2012.0091.01.06 - orange.

All six puzzles have the mark: MADE IN HONGKONG

The puzzles belonged to Rebecca Coven, the mother of the donor, who was a mathematics teacher in Brooklyn, New York. The donor dated the objects to about 1975. A mark on one of them gives the copyright date 1969.

According to Martin Gardner, Lakeside Industries, a division of Leisure Dynamics of Minneapolis, sold this series of six polycube puzzles from 1969. The puzzles ranged in difficulty from the easiest (yellow) to the hardest (blue). California game inventor Gerard D’Arcey designed the puzzles. Recent websites list a similar set of puzzles, although the colors are different.

Single examples of this puzzle (with six different versions available) were advertised as on sale in 1970 for forty-nine cents each. A 1982 advertisement lists individual puzzles at $1.99, reduced from a regular price of $2.99.

References:

[Advertisement], The Hartford Courant, November 12, 1970, p. 27.

[Advertisement}, The Chicago Tribune, February 24, 1982, p. C8.

Kevin Holmes and Rik Van Grol, A Compendium of Cube-Assembly Puzzles Using Polycube Shapes, Suffolk, England: Trench Puzzles, 2002.

Martin Gardner, Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Entertainments, New York: W. H. Freeman, 1986, p. 41.