All About Japanese Puzzle Boxes

• History of the Japanese Puzzle Box (Himitsu-bako 秘密箱)

Appropriately enough for boxes that are designed to be mysterious, the exact date of the origins of the Japanese Puzzle Box Himitsu-Bako is not clear. Definitely, they existed by the end of the 18th century, and were being used to protect people’s jewels and money from thieves. Why someone after your precious stones wouldn’t just take the whole box, mystery and all, and smash it with a big old, unmysterious hammer is another puzzle all of its own. 

Suffice to say that by the mid 19th century these boxes were being used for keeping things like the new yellow phosphorus matches that were prone to self-ignition if not handled correctly. They were also used to keep children from handling things they were not meant to. Think of the passcode you put on online purchases on your digital devices so that your toddler can’t buy themselves a new skin for the latest perpetual running game. But 1900 style. 

When safer red phosphorus matches were invented (Let’s call it “disruption”, 19th century style) the boxes were produced less and started to become collectors items. 

From the end of the 19th century more ornate saiku 細工 boxes started to be made in the Southern part of the city of Hakone, called Hatajuku. The start of this tradition is accredited to tradesperson Oogawa 大川隆五郎. The region around Hakone (which interestingly translates literally as box-root) and the Odawara region is blessed with a rich array of tree types and was a mecca for both wood craftspeople and for tourists seeking out the healing waters of the local Onsen. This combination of tradespeople and tourists in such close proximity seems to have been produced the perfect delta for bringing about the culture of fine boxes that exists in the region today. 

What To Look For When Buying A Japanese Puzzle Box

Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr [CC BY-SA 2.0 FR (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en)]

If you want to get yourself one of these tricky little vessels what do you need to think about? Well, it depends on what you want to use it for. The main things to think about are:

• Price
• Size
• Number of moves to open (and close)
• Craftsmanship

These criteria relate to what you want to put in your puzzle box. There are small boxes, usually quite inexpensive, with slits in the top or side that you can use as a money box. Or ones that are a good size to put keys that you don’t want others to have access to inside. Some boxes are cheap enough that you could put a present inside one and use it as a kind of high quality, and intriguing, gift box. Some might be just the right size to put things in that you don’t want children to have access to, such as a tv remote. 

You’ll also want to think about how much you want to use the box purely as a puzzle, in which case you might want to knock yourself out with a dastardly box with a lot of moves. But if you want to open and close your box frequently, you’ll want to get something with just a few opening moves.

Levels of Difficulty

Puzzle boxes have set amounts of sequences of moves that are required to open them up. This could be as low as 1 or two or as high as around 50. There are boxes, let’s call them maniac boxes, that can have moves numbering into the hundreds.

As logic would tell you, a puzzle box with 100 moves is generally going to be more difficult than a box with one move. But not always. It all depends on the flow of each move and how intuitive, or counter-intuitive, it all is. 

Wikihow has some tips on opening various types of puzzle boxes here.

Types of Japanese Puzzle Boxes

Yosegi Himitsubako

The Yosegi style of parquet woodwork is one of the most strikingly representative styles of box creation. Yosegi literally means “bringing together wood” and refers to the delicately intertwined patterning of wood. The angular designs on these pieces are exquisite, orderly explosions of geometry. Although they are rich in color and tone, traditionally none of the pieces are painted or artificially colored. Instead, they draw on the innate colors of the trees from which they are taken. They form a visually symphonic homage to the natural world. This means that no two boxes are quite the same. It’s this inherent one-of-a-kindness that makes them so collectible.

There is somewhere in the vicinity of 60 patterns, although the number of possible patterns is theoretically infinite. Some of the classics include  tortoiseshell, checkerboard, cloisonne arrowhead and hemp leaf patterns.

Karakuri-bako (絡繰り箱）