Trinity is as beautiful as it is unique: the goal is to wrap three identical pieces around three ornate posts attached to a base. The pieces feature extreme and somewhat odd angles and turns. The frame is crafted from a matching bubinga, a lovely and bright wood choice that highlights this puzzle’s double duty, exemplifying puzzles as art better than most. Between the curves of the lathed columns and the precisely sharp corners of the pieces, the crafting must have been difficult; it is no wonder that Pelikan only made 60 of these beauties but I do truly wonder how they somehow remain available on Puzzlemaster at the time of this writing (if you’re buying, be sure to use the discord affiliate link to PM).

It arrived a bit smaller than I had originally expected (I checked the dimensions when ordering but had always had it in my head as being a bit bigger) but this turns out to be a smart choice. I knew the goal was to wrap the three pieces around and through the frame posts, but was not certain of what this might look like; I knew the configuration would be symmetrical, as I had seen the pics previously but declined to check it after receiving the puzzle. It wasn’t all that hard to find the correct build outside the frame; it follows a somewhat straightforward logic with perhaps not too many incorrect builds realistically possible.

Doors & Drawers is another Toulouzas design crafted by Pelikan (the knobs and feet were crafted by the designer and highlight his excellent woodworking skills complementing those of Pelikan) and originally sold by Bernhard Schweitzer. D&D is completely different from Trinity but just as unique (perhaps a bit less beautiful, but that’s a big bar to beat). It begins as a take-apart puzzle, featuring three interlocking drawers confoundingly blocked further by some simple packing pieces hidden away in inconveniently devious places.

My copy was a bit tight at first and required a bit of boveda love (once I confirmed that it was, for once, not just my dumbassery) before I could begin solving it. The packing pieces complicate the disassembly of the interlocking pieces, requiring some precise orientations found after numerous false starts. Despite relatively few pieces overall, the design is more than complicated enough to allow for an assembly challenge when left mixed for a matter of weeks; it was really here where I began to fully appreciate the design as I had to reverse engineer the purpose of the off-center knobs – these turned out to be much more than ornamental, their asymmetric locations constricting assembly options and requiring some of that thinking stuff to figure out.

I began pulling and pushing on the pieces until finding something that did something; the design features one or more hooks on each of the nine pieces, requiring a minimum of two moves to remove each, oftentimes more. The design is further complicated by what I can only describe as a lock that further frustrates disassembly; although this is not an overly hard challenge, it is fun, the process of discerning hook vs. lock making for an interesting puzzling experience.