A few minutes walk from my home, there is a place called Cape Clara, so I thought I would bring a couple of cubes there in order to justify the title of this thread...



And here is the 1-year anniversary picture of my puzzle collection (see this post for some background information):



Not all of my puzzles showed up. Some were expelled for bad behaviour or for being too messed up, but a couple of them managed to sneak back into the picture (like the Star Wars heads). You may also have noticed that some were shy and did their best to hide behind others. But here is a list of the participants (starting from the front row, left to right):

Cubic 3x3x5
2 Skewb diamonds
Face turning octahedron from Taiwan (the old, original version)
2 Trajber's octahedrons
3 Star puzzlers (packaged)
3 Octahedrons (2 originals, one white custom made)
Octaminx
2 Okkis (normal and sticker variation)
Hexagonal dipyramid from 3x3x3

2 Pyraminx crystals (white and black)
Rhombic triacontahedron
2 Icosaminx (black and white)
Hungarian supernova in package (by Pentangle)
Christoph's magic jewel in package
2 Rubik's Sajt (one in package)
Hexagon rhombic dodecahedron
2 Spindle dominos (one sealed in plastic container)
2 Groove dominos (one with blue cardboard box)

2 Alexander stars (one in plastic container)
Fisher's high cube house (built by Constantin)
Star cube
Spaceship cube (produced in Ukraine)
2 Cuboctahedrons/diamonds (one in plastic container)
2 Pillow cubes (one in plastic container)
3 Octagonal prisms/barrels (one in plastic container)
3x3x3 with truncated corners
3x3x3 in plastic container (the original one I got when I was 7 years old)

Chinese megaminx
Meffert's original 6 colored megaminx
Meffert's new 12 colored megaminx
Tomy megaminx
Rainbow cube, 14 colors
Dino cube (custom made)
2 Diamond cubes (different colors)
Master cuboctahedron
Super Star prism (from Super Square-1)
Star prism
Dodecagonal prism
Super Dodecagonal prism (from Super Square-1)
2-layer Star prism
4 Square-1/Cube-21

3x3x3 keychain in package
Pyramid (pyramorphix clone) in package
2 Starbursts (one stickered like a Stern)
Tomy pyraminx in container
Meffert's pyraminx
3 Tetraminx (one stickered and two tiled)
Mirror blocks
Void cube
Ball in cube
Maze cube
2 Siamese cubes

Pyraminx keychain in package
Pyramorphix keychain
2 Skewb ball keychains
Mini "Kibble cube"
Kibble cube
V-cube 7 (black)
V-cube 6 (black)
V-cube 5 (black)
Mercedes Benz cube
2x2x2 Pocket cube
3x3x3 Ultimate cube
V-cube 5 (white)
V-cube 6 (white)
V-cube 7 (white)
Calendar cube with box
4x4x4 Eastsheen

2 Missing link keychains in package
2x2x2 keychain
Octagonal barrel keychain
Snake cube keychain
3x3x3 keychain
Tricky disky
Double 2x2x2
Triple 2x2x2
Quadruple 2x2x2
Varikon 2x2x2 white
Varikon 3x3x3 white
Rotos with box
Great gears
Rack 'em up
Elemental Neon DIY
Magellan (white)
4 Meffert's Dogics (5-, 10- and 12-color versions)
Original hungarian dogic in box (12 colors)

2 Pyramorphix keychains
Kaleido puzzle with box
4 1/2 Yoshimoto cubes and clones (a crazy comet and a yoshimoto cube in package)
Yoshimoto cube No. 1 in gold/silver
Yoshimoto cube No. 2 in gold/silver
Orbik
Rubik's rabbits
IQ139 Rainbow puck in box
Platypus supreme
Skewb
2 Ultimate skewbs (one in Japanese packaging)

3x3x3 Ball
Magic sphere
Meffert's Impossiball 6 colors
Logi-vip
2 3x3x3 balls (medium and small)
2 Masterballs (soccerball and rainbow)
3 Golden cubes (copper, silver and gold)
2 D-balls (old world and globe)
Orb-it in container
Wisdom ball with box
Impossiball by Milton Bradley (in container)
Football (in container)

Chinese magic
Missing link
2 5-layered Varikon towers (one in container)
3 Star Wars puzzle heads (Amidala/Princess Leia, Anakin/Darth Vader, Sidious/Count Dooku)
Mickey soccer ball
4 Snake cubes
Hungarian rings (Singapore airlines)
Turnstile
31-puzzle
15-puzzle
Rubik's shells
Bugs Bunny puzzle head
Mickey Mouse puzzle head
Mirror blocks (in package, signed)

Mad triad 3 wheels (in package)
Rubik's Ufo
Rubik's world in box
Smart Alex in box
K-ball in box
Void cube in box
4 Thomas balls (sticker variation by Jürgen Brandt, 12 colors, 4 colors, solid)

Mad triad 6 wheels (in box)
Homer Simpson puzzle head (in box)
Rubik's magic (in box)
Rubik's Master magic (in box)
Rubik's triamid (in box)
Rubik's fifteen (in box)
Rubik's clock (in box)
Spin-out (in box)
Rubik's magic jigsaw (hiding behind the others)

2 Cubedrons (too busy to show up in time for the picture)
1 Floppy cube (arrived late)
Virus puzzle (didn't pass security)


There you go, Rox, I hope this makes up for my lack of a puzzle page. As you see, there is nothing really special about my collection, but I still love it! My first year in the puzzle world has been a great experience. I would like to end it with a huge thank you to all the great people here at TwistyPuzzles.

There's that view again!! Ahhhhh....it must be nice!


That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time!

Reeeeeespect!!!

And as you mentioned there is except to the high amount of carefully selected puzzles nothing really special as e.g. the two Cheeses in the middle...

Congrats to this beautiful collection

Frank

Darn Klara, Nothing special! My eye! I didn't have anywhere near that amount of amazing puzzles my first year collecting (ok, so I was only around 10, but even so). Those first two rows alone put my collection to shame!

Thank you so much for posting an updated picture. I saved it to drool over later

Klara, I'm very jealous of your view, and your collection.

So you're the one outbidding me on everything! Just kidding.

Very impressive and nowhere near what I have. Congratulations!

Yikes! Everywhere I look, there's another interesting puzzle!

If it's not the two pillow cubes, it's the Rubik's Maze, or the two Rubik's Cheeses, or the four dominoes, or the Star puzzlers, or the Ball In Cube, or the ...

How on earth did you get FOUR Thomasballs? I thought those were rarer than hen's teeth these days!

Awesome collection, Klara! Believe me, we're all drooling out here!

You've been collecting this for only a year? Very nice! Thanks for the pictures!

You meant one decade, right?
After one year, I have 35! I also have no money
Awesome collection!

Thank you all for your nice comments on my collection.



David, I hope you realize that I am really posting these pictures in order to tempt your puzzles to come and see the mountains...
I guess I have been spending too much time drooling over pictures of the great collections of Georges, Mr.Twisty, Sandy, Vadim, Aleksey, Reech, Oscar, Frank Tiex, Juan Roure, Pantazis, Rox etc... My collection will never be as large as Rox's, as complete as Georges' or as tasteful as Frank Tiex's. So in that sense it is really not that special.



Frank, I am really flattered by such comments from a puzzle collector I deeply admire. Your collection of puzzles is so exquisite. In fact, my first visit to your puzzle library made me realize that I don't need every single puzzle in the world - I only need the ones that appear in Frank Tiex collection.



Rox, I am happy to be able to make you drool. After all, you are the true Queen of puzzles.


I hope that you will eventually be able to get the puzzles you want, in particular an octahedron.




Nope, that would probably be our new German member who has won almost all the interesting puzzle auctions he has entered since October (more than 150 puzzles including several by Tony Fisher, Aleh, Flambore, Calzone, Chino, Jesseking etc). If he ever posts a picture of his collection, I think we will all be amazed....



I have noticed that you have been growing quite a collection over the last few months yourself.
The Thomas balls hardly appear on ebay, but I have been able to get them through other collectors. There are some really nice and helpful people on this forum, as I am sure you will discover.



Celia, I have had four of the puzzles in the picture since my childhood, but I only discovered the wonderful world of Rubik's like puzzles about a year ago (you can find more information in this post). Your puzzle page was actually one of the first I encountered (linked from Pantazis' Puzzle Paradise), and I really enjoyed reading the information about how you got your different puzzles, wishing I could have joined you searching flea markets for hidden puzzle gems.

Those pictures tempt me to hand deliver the puzzles.

Those puzzles make me wanna cry with envy.

Now, that would be a great bonus, David - hoping to attract puzzles, and ending up attracting nice, puzzle building friends. I'd better keep on posting pictures then.

My white skewb egg arrived today:



Of course I also wanted the golden version with a little elf... Here the eggs are guarding my beloved helicopter cube (thank you so much, Adam!):

Let me ask a dumb question. (I'm sure I asked before, but still don't know the answer)

How can one get a Helicopter Cube?

Regards,
Paulo

Currently, you can't except through private trades. However, Adam said in this thread that he plans to sell them.

Yes, I sent him a message, but got nothing.

Thanks,
Paulo

I got my custom Elemental Neon from Dave today, and was so taken by it's beauty that I have been unable to do anything but stare happily at it for the last few hours. So I thought I'd better share some pictures of the most beautiful puzzle I'll ever have the fortune of owning:



Dave designed my favorite fractal image onto the Neon and developed techniques which enabled him to ink with five colors (blue, purple, red, orange and yellow). He also made a smaller version of the image for the back plate:



Unfortunately the pictures really don't do justice to this beautiful piece of art, but I am too excited to wait for better lighting conditions or a better camera. I believe that scrambling this Neon will give a nice sense of creating a contemporary abstract painting.

I am simply thrilled with the outstanding qualities of this puzzle. You are a true artist, Dave! I don't even know how to begin thanking you for all the time and efforts you have invested in this project. Just know that I will treasure my Neon for all the reasons you so beautifully described in this post, and for bringing back fond memories of a time when I had the pleasure of following the exciting puzzle adventures of a really awesome person.

That puzzle is ridiculously beautiful!!

Oh. My. Goodness.

That Neon is absolutely GORGEOUS.

-CC10

I'm floored by that Neon. I've been into fractals since I was about 9 or so, and I've written a couple programs to draw various ones. Seeing the fusion of fractals and puzzles is just fantastic.

Thanks for the great review Klara! For those with interest in how I did the inking, I just posted about it here.

Dave

I haven't updated this thread for a long time, but today I was able to take some pictures that seemed worth sharing and could justify a bump... I just received my custom Elemental Argon and a Duominx from Dave, and although I previously thought that the Fractal Neon he made me last year was the most beautiful puzzle I would ever have the fortune of owning, this music themed Argon is certainly giving my Neon some tough competition:



The violin and g-clef design was originally a back-up I had for my Neon, in case the fractal image would turn out to be too complicated. But the wider shape of the Argon seemed perfectly suited for including a few measures from the Violin Sonata in A Major by César Franck, which holds a special place in my heart, since that was the piece that made me want to learn how to play the violin when I was a kid. Sticking with the violin and piano theme of the sonata, we decided on going with alternating layers of pearl and black acrylic to represent the keyboard of the underlying piano:



Once again Dave has outdone himself, and I can hardly express how pleased I am with the result. Everything about his work is simply outstanding, from the minor details of the score (he actually recreated each note from scratch for better precision) to the beautiful details of the head, pegs and strings of the violin. The triple layered etching and inking actually give the strings a 3D like appearance which is hardly visible in my low quality pictures, but can be seen in the picture Dave posted when hinting about this puzzle here. I believe I have finally found a nice way of acquiring puzzles disguised as pieces of art to decorate my home... So Dave, thank you for once again making a puzzle so beautiful that I have to smile every time I look at it:




For those remembering this post, I suppose I should also explain why this puzzle is named Frank... Having given my Elemental Neon the name Julia (after the Julia set), it seemed rather obvious that my César Franck inspired Argon would have to be named either Caesar or Frank, and upon seeing a preview of this puzzle back in April, Frank Schwarz was kind enough to assure me that he would be honored to have this puzzle named after him. So in fond remembrance of Frank, this puzzle is named Frank Argon #01.

I will end with a picture of the Litwin Triplets Julia, Frank and Davy (the latter being my foreign pronunciation of Divy - Do It Valiantly Yourself) for size comparison:

A Truly beautiful set of puzzles Klara! You have such great imagination when it comes to what to put on these. I'm more of a 'surprise me' do your best, and I'll love it kind of gal. I wish I could dream up themes like you have!

The Elemental puzzles are ,without doubt, my favourite non-twisty puzzles. They look fantastic.

Alex

Hei, Klara

Where did you get these :

Icosaminx ?

Hope it is available some where

Alex <3

Hei, Alexander
I got the icosaminx from an ebay seller more than two years ago (see my reply to Andreas in this post ). The builder turned out to be a member of this forum, but I don't know whether he is still into puzzle building, as I haven't seen him around for more than a year. So I'll leave it to him to reveal himself publicly if he wishes, but will send you some further details by PM.

To reduce the "I've sent you a PM" appearance of this post, I will include an old picture of some of my puzzles (I don't have any recent pictures of my collection):

Beautiful collection, Klara!!! (in 2009, my collection was this size too)
You have some cool puzzles that I really want in my collection, like the Elemental Neon puzzles.
Do you know how could I find one?

Thanks for your nice comments, I have noticed that your collection has grown quite rapidly lately.

As for an Elemental Neon, Dave (DLitwin) should be able to help you if you are able to decide on which materials and design you want. Or you could follow Rox's strategy and let Dave surprise you. He offers customized as well as standard versions of all his Elemental puzzles, and there are plenty of nice materials to choose from. Take a look at the links in this post for an idea of the different options.