Hi.

I just got a vintage 3x3 Rubik's Cube that was manufactured in Taiwan. I also own one from Haiti. There seems to be no difference betewwn the two besides the orange stickers. The Taiwan cube has a duller orange sticker and the Haiti cube has the thick bright orange sticker. The internals and cubies look virtually identical. My questions are this...

Besides the Hungarian made cubes, is there any differences in the cubes made for ITC from other coutries?

Was Taiwan the first country besides Hungary to manufacture cubes, and didn't they use the original Hungarian molds?

thanks,
Mike

I think the first Rubik's Cubes made in Taiwan did use the original molds frrom Hunagary. I thought I had an example, but I can't find it.
There were lots of variations in weight and structure, thickness of plastic, the plastic itself. etc. in the ITC cubes made in different places.
Hong Kong, Germany and England had the plastic I liked the best.

DJ

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I have the same one, it's called Cube Puzzle, right?
I tried looking all over the internet, but couldn't find any references to it. Maybe it will be in the museum here.

Mindstormscreator,

Do you mean the "Magic Cube" by Logical Games (1979-1980), which predates the name "Rubik's CUBE" and all ITC production? It was made in America using the same molds as the ones used originally in Hungary. It came lubed!

DJ

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Unfortunately not. That's why I wondered how rare it was, because it wasn't called Magic Cube, which was what Rubik's cube was called before it was called Rubik's.

Hi DJ,

Could you describe, or do you know where I could find a list of, the differences in the various ITC cubes? So far I have only the Haiti, and Taiwan ITC cubes.

Thanks,
Mike

I once took the time to weigh all of my cubes, and I posted the weights somewhere, maybe the yahoo speedcubing forum, but that was two computers ago and the file is gone.

IIRC the first Hungarian cubes had solid cubies and the undersides of the centers were arched. The plastic was terrible and the cubes were hard to turn. To make then turn more easily they flattened the underside of the centers in the next molds which were the ones in use when sales really took off. These second molds were first ones that Ideal used and I think they were mainly Taiwan cubes. hey weighed something like 155 g. The third molds hollowed out the cubies somewhat and weighed something like 115g . The fourth group hollowed the cubies out more, making the sides really thin, and some of these had the arches 105 grams.
The Deluxe came out made in Korea had much thicker, but harder, slicker plastic I forget maybe 130-150 grams.
That's all I recall right now.

DJ

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Is this *your* cube puzzle?



or this one?



I found both on Georges' site, as well as the one David J is talking about, from Logical Games:



which Georges describes as: "AMERICAN CUBE. Black, light-blue, yellow, green, red and orange square stickers on white plastic. Sold by Logical Games, USA. In 1983 the owner of Logical Games, Bela Szalai, wrote me a letter offering to buy from him the exclusive rights to his Magic Cube. Alas, I hadn't enough money "