The Takarabako Puzzle crafted by Rick Jenkins

The Takarabako Puzzle crafted by Rick Jenkins

We present to you the Takarabako Puzzle crafted by Rick Jenkins.  Takarabako in Japanese is defined as “Strong Box” or “Treasure Chest.”  It was Rick's FIRST independent project and was well anticipated.  For those of you that may not be familiar with Rick, he is the infamous apprentice to Robert Yarger of Stickman Puzzles for approximately the past 2-3 years.  News came out from Rob Yarger (Stickman) that a new creation would be released by Rick through emails and I quickly signed on.  The reputations of these two crafters remain to be extremely well recognized and it was an easy purchase for me.  

 After contacting Rick directly, I pretty much begged him to purchase the #1/40 puzzle.  For some reason, I desired the first of the series….I don’t really know why but it just seemed a good idea at the time. Rick gladly obliged to which I was very thankful.

 

When the box arrived, I quickly was puzzled by the lattice style design and noticed it was a delicate creation.  While rotating the box in my hands over soft cloth, it appeared to be a box within a box.

I pressed and prodded initially and had a little difficulty finding movement.  The finish on the puzzle was well done as the construction of the box was intricate.  After some time, I was able to discover some of the tricks of the puzzle and was surprised as some of the movements were unique to other puzzles I have been exposed to.  The box does contain a smaller hidden space, which of course is a must for my particular taste and collection.

 It was noted that the Takarabako box was a little more work than Rick I think has anticipated.  While some make hope for a second run of these puzzles, I doubt that more will be constructed.  I was extremely happy to add such a unique puzzle to my collection.

At the time of this writing, Rick is busy working on the release of his third solo project.  From the look of the drawings, this particular puzzle (not named as of yet), appears to be another interesting work.   I will be excited to see what he comes up with next!

 

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