The Efran Stash Box

A Small Stash Box

1998

Explanation

In the search for a stash box more conveniently sized than the Display Box, Dan Efran developed a very tight packing pattern that allows one player's worth of solid Icehouse pieces into a box 5 ³/₈ inches long and 2 inches wide. I quickly designed and built such a box.

The first one, shown on the left, above, was made of basswood and had a plexiglas front like the Display Box. later, I realized the box could be smaller and cheaper if made of laminated card stock. Soon, I'd designed the Origami Efran Stash Box (right, above) and a new kind of tip saver to fit within.

The Efran packing pattern consists of lining up the 3-pointers and placing the 2-pointers and 1-pointers in opposition to them, in between them. Here's a close-up picture of the pattern with one of the 2-pointers removed to show the 1-pointer beneath it.

To keep the pieces from rattling around, I designed a new tip saver. (Tip savers were initially invented by Number 12 to keep the resin pieces from rattling around in the black boxes and having their tips snapped off.) I'd used tip savers in the Display Box, but these had to be special due to the way the 1's and 2's are stacked. These pictures show the tip savers in place, and their triple-V shape:

In the picture of the wooden box, the leftmost declivity holds the 2-pointers, the middle declivity holds the 1-pointers beneath them, and the rightmost declivity holds the 3-pointers facing the other way.

This last photo shows the support structure that keeps the cardstock construction from collapsing under the weight of the pieces.

To date, this is the smallest stash box designed for solid pieces. Smaller stash boxes exist for nesting pieces, but the only packing pattern for solid pieces that would yield a smaller box is too difficult to remember, and nearly impossible to build a simple tip saver for.

I've currently made about six of the Origami Efran Stash boxes. they're very convenient when you just want to carry around your favorite stash of pieces, and let your friends carry around their own.