• designed by Stewart Coffin (USA)
• number of pieces: 6
• difficulty rating (from 1 to 10): 2
• list price (grade A/B/C): USD $260/169/104
• current availability: out of stock
• future availability: July, 2010

Looking like three intersecting square prisms, this visually pleasing puzzle is a member of the Diagonal Burr family. Here at Pacific Puzzleworks, we have found that most people will have an easy time figuring out how the individual pieces should fit together, but those unfamiliar with Diagonal Burr style puzzles will have to think for a while in order to figure out how to get the last piece in place. Ultimately, the assembly process requires a bit of dexterity to get all of the pieces lined up just right, and furthermore, ensuring that like-woods match faces with each other adds an additional challenge to the solving experience.

With all of that said, it is our opinion that the true joy in owning a genuine Pacific Puzzleworks Seven Woods puzzle is the visual impact that it makes on your desk or shelf, the pleasing way that it fits in your hands, the silky-smooth motion of the pieces as you expand them in and out to the brink of collapse, and the simple pleasure of playing with a precision mechanical device.

Pacific Puzzleworks proudly manufactures each puzzle from only the finest quality exotic hardwoods. We never use any stains or dyes to achieve the stunning colors that you see here -- instead we showcase the beauty that nature has to offer by finishing our painstakingly cut puzzle pieces with clear laquer and high-quality Renaissance brand museum-grade wax.

Design Notes: Stewart Coffin first came up with this puzzle in 1968 when he was experimenting with ideas by casting the pieces in epoxy. He called this puzzle "Prism", which consisted of six identical pieces, cast in three colors, and which assembled to form three intersecting square prisms. As Coffin said in his AP-ART book, "Only a few of this mundane design were cast." Once he began working with wood, Coffin revisited many of his previous ideas, including the cast Prism puzzle, which he renamed as Seven Woods. Coffin produced and sold 20 copies of this puzzle in 1971.