The Case of the Puzzling Star Puzzle

While browsing eBay a while ago, I came across a wire puzzle with a design I hadn’t seen before. The title said it was vintage, and that seemed plausible judging from the patina. This is usually my type of puzzle - old and wirey. But this couldn’t possibly be a puzzle, could it? It seemed pretty simply - move the triangle piece around the star until you get to the end and take it off. I did what I always do when I don’t recognize a puzzle - search on Rob’s Puzzle Page, Jerry Slocum’s collection, and The Puzzle Museum, but I couldn’t find any additional information about it. The asking price seemed reasonable but the shipping was on the high side, so decided to pass it up.

I didn’t think much about it until I came across it again while I was back on eBay. What if the gap was too small simply to slide the triangle off the end of the spiral star? Then, this would be an interesting puzzle. So I tried searching again. This time I went to the Patents. Google provides a nice search for patents, although I find it a little harder to use than typical Google search. It really helps to know some of the tags. Patents are grouped by category, and I knew that if this was in the patent database, it would most likely be under A63F9/0876 Bent wire or cord puzzles. So I searched

  star (A63F9/0876) before:1920  

And sure enough, one of the results returned was that star puzzle! Patent US 872717 from 1907

Ok, now I’m sold. Yes this is a puzzle, and it has a backstory. I now know the designer and date of the patent. I decided to make an offer with a few dollars off to compensate for the high shipping price, and the seller accepted.

That would have been a good end to the story, but there’s more! Even though the patent was from 1907, that doesn’t mean this instance of the puzzle is that old. Maybe someone found the patent and made one last week. But I don’t think this ever became a very popular puzzle, so there was a good chance this was made around the time of the patent. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, it seemed like it had a chance to be old based on how it looked in the photos. The puzzle arrived today, and I looked to see if there were any marks on it that would indicate the maker or any other information. I was very excited when I found in very small but very clear letters: PAT PEND., which of course stands for Patent Pending. So there is a very high probability that this indeed was made in 1907 when the patent was being processed!

This ticks off a lot of boxes for me - Tanglement puzzle. Check. Old. Check. Patented. Check. And oh yeah, how is it as a puzzle? Well it did stump me for a while but I managed to solve it. I wonder how long that puzzle has been waiting to be solved. I think it’s actually a pretty good puzzle and will fit nicely in my vintage metal tanglement collection.

Update: I did find on Rob’s Puzzle Page the ‘Star Maze’ by Fiddl’Widdit which looks very much like this puzzle, so seems like there actually are some modern examples of this puzzle.