As most puzzlers are well aware, Stewart Coffin has designed hundreds of mechanical puzzles of virtually every kind, many of which deliver that sublime “Aha!” brilliance that sets the very best puzzles apart. Stewart’s designs run a huge range, including 2D packing and sliding block puzzles as well as 3D interlocking and coordinate motion cubes, rhombic dodecahedra, and other shapes. The man is a puzzle genius, a superb wood craftsman, and amazingly prolific. Although he’s announced his retirement from designing puzzles multiple times, luckily for us he continues to invent new ones and they often show up as IPP exchange gifts.
Along the way he has published several books about his puzzles and some of them can be found online. One great place to find them is the books section at John Rausch’s Puzzle World website. There, for example, you will find Stewart’s 312 page PDF file called, “AP-ART – A Compendium Of Puzzle Designs” from way back in 2018. Well, last year he updated it, adding the N-series of puzzles, trimming it down to 252 pages, renaming it “AP-ART: The Art That Comes Apart”, and releasing a PDF version on his personal website. He also felt it was time to make it available in physical form again and had 60 copies printed on high quality paper with a spiral binding so that the pages lay flat. Here it is:
I helped with the page layout, formatting, indexing, proof-reading, printing, etc. and I am dislocating my shoulder from patting myself on the back for how well it turned out. Seriously, the color and resolution of the pictures are just great! Of the 60 printed, I have 19 for sale on my Etsy store. If you go there and none are available, email me to let me know you’re interested. If there’s enough demand we can print some more.