EIFFEL TOWER PUZZLE

The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 as the main exhibit at the Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair), held to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution. This puzzle was made in England by G.Broadbent of Nottingham, and wholesaled by W.R.Hughes of London, to commemorate the event in Paris. It has survived in such good condition as it has appears to have spent over 100 years until this year in an attic in Wales.

The instructions say: "Entirely disarrange the letters by shaking up. Then manipulate and get them in correct order, but without touching the letters".

It is a most unusual Dexterity Puzzle: The letters are made of tin and are double sided so they can hang loosely from the two thin rods. They are separated by glass beads which keeps the letters in their relative positions. The unusual feature is that they can be flipped up and over or just slide on the rods. It is extremely difficult to try and either slide or flip one letter without the rest doing the same.

Neither our venerable Curator nor his young assistants have yet discovered the technique for reliably solving this puzzle.