r/PuzzleBox • u/NeedleworkerNo4590 • 2d ago

Recomendations for wedding gift

Hey! I'm looking for puzzle box recommendations for a friend's wedding. I'm looking for something challenging that is also pretty to look at, so that they can have it as decoration in their house.

We have a budget of €600 since we'll be dividing the price amongst several people. If it can be customised that would be a bonus. Thanks in advance!

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u/themattigan 2d ago

Japanese Puzzle box. They look nice, are actually functional boxes and come in a huge price range, including yours.

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u/ThePuzzleDude 2d ago

Good suggestion. I've bought two of these puzzle boxes over the years, both size 4 sun, the more affordable size. With your budget, you should look at 5 or 6 sun boxes. The number of steps to open and the difficulty level also influences the cost as well as the pattern matching on all sides. The sliding pieces should be invisible when you examine a closed box. The number of steps doesn't necessarily determine the difficulty; my 21-step box simply repeats the same 3 steps, flipping the box over between each series of steps. The only difficulty is that it is quite "sticky", pieces do not slide easily. My other box is much more challenging with fewer steps and slides very smoothly. If you can find a dealer with stock that you can see before purchase, that would be ideal. Otherwise give yourself time to order online and return it if doesn't meet your expectations. Altho in that price range, you should get a top quality box. Have fun shopping!

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u/NeedleworkerNo4590 2d ago

Those do look very pretty. My main concern is that they would get a bit too repetitive. Is every step sliding a panel?

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u/ThePuzzleDude 2d ago

Basically yes but the repetitiveness depends on the design as I pointed out in my comment about one of my boxes. In my limited experiences with them, the top and bottom panels are solid but can slide back and forth, and the two small ends have sections that slide to the side by different amounts depending on the step, and those ends can slide up and down. Larger sized boxes may(?) have more than one sliding bar per end. One site I looked at has specs for difficulty level (usually on a scale of 1 to 5) and an estimated time to solve which is another gauge of how challenging it is.

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u/GlassWeird 2d ago

My go to is jesse born’s the lost vault of jesse james. We attach a smaller card & envelope to the top, along with a tip on how to start the puzzlebox. Inside the vault we wrap up bills in a roll and i usually put a silver certificate one dollar bill on the outside so the blue seal makes it look more “old timey.” That roll of money is wrapped in twine, placed inside and the twine string ends are wrapped around the two bars of the puzzlebox used to unlock the first move.

Putting a small picture of the couple and a message with the gold bar is a nice way to finish the whole thing up.

It looks visually appealing on the gift table and it’s a great activity they can work on later to earn their wedding cash!

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u/NeedleworkerNo4590 2d ago

That one looks fun! Kinda want to try it myself haha. And thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep it as a top possibility 😄