Uwe Mèffert
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Uwe Mèffert (28 November 1939–30 April 2022) was a German-born puzzle inventor and marine biologist. He was the designer of many puzzles such as the Pyraminx. He has also helped to produce many puzzles that he did not design, such as the Megaminx, Pyraminx Crystal, Tony Durham's Skewb, and Tony Fisher's Golden Cube. Mèffert also operated an online store Meffert's containing puzzles he produced, although his store also contained products that Mèffert neither designed or actively produced, such as the Master Pyramorphix.
Life
Mèffert was born in Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains of Germany. He was educated in Heidelberg, Germany; Geelong, Australia; and Bern, Switzerland. He lived in Asia since the 1970s, especially Hong Kong. He also worked in Australasia, doing private research into human and animal nutrition. He wrote several books on Nutrition & Tai-Chi Chi-Gung, Long life Health & Beauty exercise.
In the early 1970s he experimented with slicing polyhedra into symmetric slices and attaching them with rubber bands to a center ball. Part of his interests were in supposed "energy flows" inside the human body and the mystical power of the pyramid and other shapes. His wooden puzzles eventually end up in a drawer, half-forgotten.
In 1980 the Rubik's Cube was launched upon the world leading to a mass craze. Urged on by his friends, he agreed to show his puzzles to Tomy Toys of Japan in early 1981. Tomy liked the puzzles and selected the Pyraminx. Over 10 million pieces where sold through toy stores by Christmas 1981, (and 90 million within 3 years). Following this initial success, he also supplied 4x4x4 & 5x5x5 cubes to Ideal toys and their subsidiaries from his Hong Kong base. He also produced a Megaminx (getting "his impulse from Kersten Meier and Udo Krell")[2]; and the Skewb, invented by Tony Durham, and originally sold as the "Pyraminx Cube" (to associate it with his best-selling product).
The puzzle market went very quiet in the aftermath of the cube craze in 1982. In the 1990s and 2000s Mèffert began releasing puzzles from his online store Meffert's, including 4x4x4 & 5x5x5 cubes, but especially a large range of unusual twisty puzzles sourced from puzzle designers.
