I exchanged a puzzle this week that was entirely new to me although it appears to have been mass-produced (in Switzerland) in the past.
It is a white sphere of about 6 cm in diameter with 3 perpendicular ‘equatorial’ grooves containing 53 movable buttons (16 red, 16 blue, 16 yellow and 5 dark brown). So, there is one open spot. The puzzle is called “Fantastic-Globe”. The buttons can be slided independently from each other and almost touch each other, allowing strings of buttons to be slided simultaneously.

It resembles the “Arancia Meccanica” puzzle which is larger and has 42 rounded buttons in a similar geometry (6 blue, 6 green, 6 pink, 6 red, 6 white, 6 yellow and 6 black). In this case, however, the buttons are not touching although they are internally separated such that they remain equidistant.

Does anyone else has a sample of the Fantastic-Globe puzzle and/or knows more about it?

Geert

Wow! I've never even seen the Arancia Meccanica (what an awesome name!) before nevermind the Fantastic-Globe, these look like really cool puzzles....when you say they were mass produced i assume (as you have never seen it before) that it was in extremely small quantities....

Is there anywhere we can see more of your collection Geert? I have searched here but haven't found anything. Or can anyone help with where to find more info on the arancia meccanica?

Hendrik Haak has a picture of the ‘Arancia Meccanica’ at his website.
He also has a picture of the packing, see below.


Initially I believed that the name of the puzzle was ‘Orange Mecanique’, probably because that was the name which was mentioned to me when I obtained my sample.
Judging from the pictures by Hendrik that is apparently a French translation of the original name.
The name of the company that produced the puzzle is Sympaty (name visible on the packing as well as on the puzzle itself).

Geert

During the Vicht meeting organised yesterday (see separate topic), Marcel Gillen explained that several years ago he had bought 30 samples of the Arancia Meccanica along the coast in northern Italy. He bought all available samples and has been trading and selling all of these (except one of course for his own collection).

Geert