I was at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet earlier this week, where they were setting up the Christmas toys section.
I poked my head into the section, not wanting to get in the way, and they had Spin Master’s 50th-anniversary edition of the Rubik’s Cube for five dollars.
The anniversary cube featured the original Rubik’s Cube logo from the early 1980s and a gold face instead of a yellow face, plus it came in a cool little display case.
I didn’t need it, but it looked nice and the price was good, so why not?
Well… it looks nice.
The mechanism of the anniversary cube is weird, and turning it often got hinky. It would get hung up, and it wasn’t something you could turn quickly without the mechanism jamming.
I was a little disappointed that, excepting the swap of gold for yellow, the color order wasn’t in the original configuration — blue opposite white, green opposite yellow.
I scrambled it. I solved it. I put it back in the presentation case, and now it’s sitting atop my bookcase.
It’s nice to have. I’ll probably never touch it again.