Sky Pirates

This is one of the well made series of dexterity puzzles made by R. Farmer & Sons in London around 1910-1918.

The Silver Bullet.

A friend, who was a 10 years old in 1918, told our venerable curator that this puzzle was a minor craze at the time. This would certainly explain why it is the most commonly found of Farmer's puzzles.

They took the idea of a pitfall dexterity puzzles and made it a competitive activity. Assume you have 500 soldiers and every time you fall down a hole subtract the number by the hole. See if you can get to Berlin with as many soldiers surviving as possible.

The Museum has a copy of one of Farmer's trade receipts for one gross of Silver Bullets £3-18sh-6d. In today's money that is about 2.71 pence each - A remarkably low price of a wooden framed glass top puzzle 24 cm. high.