Instant insanity

This is a well known and popular puzzle. Invented or patented by F.A.Schosow in 1900. Puzzle patent PDF is here. After produced with different names and shapes by different companies. This puzzle consists of four separate cubes. On each side of a cube there is a color or a symbol. There are four colors( or symbol) for four cube version. The aim of this puzzle is to put the cubes on top of one another in a tower such that each side of the tower will have one from each color (or shape). The colors of top, bottom and hidden faces aren’t important. I like share here my home made examples. Puzzle pieces are below,

I made this puzzle from 30×30 mm wooden cubes. I cut them from a 30×30 mm ready stock with my hand miter saw. For ornaments my old technical drawing stencils was very useful. I painted them with color gel pens and applied very thin lacquer. I made also some other versions,

Example on the left has stand and I drilled each cube center. But this version isn’t good to play, second version is made from plastic school cubes. I drilled spots on faces. very easy to make.

This puzzle has also 5 and 6 cube variations produced with different commercial names. Five cube version has five color(or shape) and six cube version has six color (or shape). You can find all information for 5 and 6 cube versions and method for solving them from here.