Origin of the name “Burr” Puzzle

I posted this to the ‘Mechanical Puzzle Community’ group on Facebook (I highly recommend you join if not already) but thought I’d share here as well.

I’m interested in the history of puzzles, and part of that is learning the origin of some of their names. There is a group of well-known interlocking wooden puzzles known collectively as “Burr” puzzles, and I’ve always been curious of the origin of the name. Is it because someone thought it resembled a seed? Or maybe Burr is in reference to a rough edge. Or maybe even named after Aaron Burr (made famous from the milk commercial). The term ‘Burr Puzzle’ seemed to be fairly recent (after 1900). Before that, it was typically called the Six-piece puzzle, or some variation of block puzzle, like wood-block, six-block, six-block Chinese. In Hoffmann’s 1893 book, he referred to it as “The Nut puzzle”, so maybe this is where the comparison to a nut or seed started.

To the Wikipedia! Here’s what it says

The term “burr” is first mentioned in a 1928 book by Edwin Wyatt, but the text implies that it was commonly used before. The term is attributed to the finished shape of many of these puzzles, resembling a seed burr.

Hmm, the text implies that it was commonly used before. So maybe that wasn’t the first usage. I looked at the text it was referring to, and it did seem like it was used as if people should already be familiar with the term. So I turned to another helpful resource: https://books.google.com/ And sure enough, I was able to find an even earlier reference of Burr referring to the puzzle:

American Carpenter and Builder Volume 13 from July 1912.

This predates the Wyatt reference by over 15 years. On page 82, G.E. Windslow refers to it as a Burr in one of the figures

Fig. 2 The “Chestnut Burr” Completely Assembled

Is this the first mention? It’s the earliest I could find but maybe there are earlier ones. The term Chestnut Burr is put in quotes, so maybe that is some indication of the novelty of the name. But in any case, it’s earlier than the Wyatt mention and also points to the origin of the name due to the resemblance to a seed - in particular the Chestnut Burr.

So how is this as a puzzle? Each piece can be encoded in a number. And I used Rob’s Burr ID Tool to figure out the numbers: 56, 536, 824, 928, 975, 976 I looked to see if this configuration was already listed somewhere but couldn’t find it. So this wasn’t just one of the well-known ones. I got out my kids’ blocks and made my own set. I only had 100 blocks, so the last one is incomplete, but it was enough to play around with the puzzle.

It turned out to be a very fun solve. I included a picture here of the result but in black-and-white so not to give too much a way. Maybe I was the first person to solve this since 1912!