his section is devoted to vintage French Boxed Wire Puzzles. In French, puzzles are generally known as "head breakers" or casse-têtes. Tanglement puzzles fall under the category of "jeux d'adresse" (games of skill), and wire puzzles in particular are "casse-tête en fil de fer."

On first glance, these puzzles seem somewhat ill-formed and flimsy, but I have found them to be fairly precisely made and surprisingly robust. The boxes are frequently colorful with artistic graphics and entertaining illustrations. Some people collect vintage French boxed puzzles simply for the box artwork.

In his 1990 book issued by L'art de L'enfance entitled "Petits Jeux et Casse Tete de la Belle Epoque" (Small Games and Puzzles of the Golden Age) (ISBN 2910067173), Yves Rifaux lists 136 French boxed puzzles manufactured during the period between 1878 and 1914. Several addendums bring the total to over 200 items. Rifaux covers many types of puzzles beyond the vintage French tanglements to which this section is devoted, including for instance many dexterity and logic puzzles. Rifaux numbers almost all the puzzles he covers sequentially starting with #1, and though he classifies each puzzle he does not group them, so unfortunately they are intermixed by type throughout the numbering scheme. Also, the body of the book and the addendums describe some puzzles which are not assigned a number in the sequence. Rifaux's book contains very poor monochrome photocopies of images of puzzle box covers, pieces, and instructions. Nonetheless, Rifaux's book was the first source I found that has a comprehensive catalogue of French Boxed puzzles and it helped me understand what is available. I have used it as the basis for organizing my collection shown below.

Several books are available from the website Collection Imagerie des jeux. I purchased "Les Casse-tete recreatifs a la 'Belle Epoque'" - by Geneviève Perrot and Françoise Mahy. It is a compendium documenting vintage French boxed puzzles of all types. That website links to an online collection: COLLECTION DE JEUX ANCIENS. To see wire puzzles, go to the article on: les casse-tete fil de fer posted by collector Alain Koli (Rabussier).

In their book, Perrot and Mahy include 32 wire and string puzzles on pages 52 through 57 under the category "Jeux de Patience et d'Adresse" and call them "Les patiences Fil de Fer" and "cordelette." The images are in color and include box covers and puzzles but are rather small. The Koli article shows a more complete selection of the wire puzzles issued by various brands.

Italian puzzle collector Dario Uri issued a book about his own collection, entitled "Compendium of French Boxed Puzzles 1860-1930." Dario very kindly sent me a copy. Uri documents 680 puzzles across all categories, most with color photos (though like me, he has salvaged some internet photos). Organized by brand.

The table below shows my collection of French Boxed Wire Puzzles. I have managed to collect images of almost all of the tanglement puzzles Rifaux mentions, though I own only those with the name shown in bold. In the first portion of the table, I have ordered the puzzles by Rifaux's number. When we get to those puzzles Rifaux does not cover, I have ordered them alphabetically by name. Thanks to Sylvie and Gilles Legrand for the use of many photos!

Many of the tanglement designs were issued by more than one brand, appearing with somewhat different box graphics and occasionally a different name. I have not attempted to collect (or illustrate below) all the varieties of each basic puzzle. However, I have attempted to cross-reference my four sources and for each puzzle list the brand(s) that issued it and for each issue in which source I found it referenced.

My sources agree that the primary brands include (with their two- or three-letter codes):

• WX - Charles Watilliaux (1874-1907)
• SC - Simonin Cuny (1898 - 1904)
• MD - Mauclair & Dacier (1893-1904)
• JJF (or JFJ) - Jeux Jouets Francais (1904-1930) - formed in 1904 from Mauclair & Dacier, Simonin Cuny, and two other game makers
• NK - (Nicolas & Keller) NK Atlas (1904-1924)
• RT - Revenaz & Tabernat (1904-1913)
• LJR - Les Jeux Reunis (1913-1946) - formed from Revenaz & Tabernat and Watilliaux - re-issued many old designs but in larger boxes
• VW - Villard & Weill (1834-1968)

To recap, my sources are (with my one- or two-letter codes):

• R# - Rifaux, with Rifaux's ID number
• PM# - Perrot and Mahy, with page number
• K - shown in the Koli article
• U# - Uri, with Uri's ID number