Revision: 1971_Sackson_380_December 26.jpg

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SUNDAY 26 DECEMBER
St. Stephen
Washington Crossed the Delaware 1776 1971 360th day - 5 days to come

Added some new routes to the JET HOLIDAY board to more nearly equalize the cities.

Claude called. Nothing specifically about games.

Bob Hallowell left HABITAT and HONORABLE RELATION with Phil, who will study them (altho I brought up that he didn't have the instructions) to decide what to do with them next.
I asked about SPACE STIX and FREE FORM. Phil will try to have those placed with Hoi Poloi before leaving.
He hasn't heard from Bill Knox of Mag-Nit since he got sick and called off his visit on the 14th.

Rcd. a call from Arnold Edson. He is an agent for Piet Hein and he has placed 5 of Hein's puzzles with Gabriel. He went to Martin Gardner to ask him to write the instructions and some background material. Martin didn't want to get involved since Piet is already dissatisfied with the contract. Martin then hold him about me. He lives in New Rochelle and I gave him directions for coming over.
Called Martin while waiting and got a little background on Edson. He first offered Martin $250 but came up to $500, the money being paid by Gabriel. Martin described the puzzles until I heard Edson at the door.
Edson showed me pictures and one model of the puzzles : - [figure to left - dots arranged in a rough hexagonal shape]. NIMBI is a variation of Hein's NIM variations on a 4x4 field. There are 12 pegs, as shown, mounted permanently in a container so that when they are pushed down on one side they are up on the other. 1 to 4 adjacent pegs in a line can be pushed, except that part of a line leaving pegs on each side cannot be pushed. Player pushing the last peg loses.
[figure to left of a 4x4 cube missing a single cube] PUZZLE. 7 blocks are mounted inside a transparent cube. (The all have the same coloring but I don't know for sure what it is.) Object is to reach the shown configuration, all red on the outside and white in the hole.
PUZZLE. [figure to left of page - pentagon with dots in- and outside] A dodecahedron (12 pentagon sides) is mounted so that each of the 12 sides can rotate. They are dots in different arrangements of three colors in each of the corners. Object is to turn the faces so that 3 different colors show at each color.
PUZZLE. [figure to left of page - 12 circles arranged 4 circles on top, three circles in the middle, and 3 circles on the bottom] Piet had a puzzle consisting of 4 pcs. as shown (2 of each) which are made up of balls connected together. These are fitted together to form a pyramid. The one sold to Gabriel is similar but with different configurations of balls. It can be made into a number of different flat and 3-D figures.
(cont. on 12/25)