January 13 - Impossible Bottles!

Posted on January 13, 2019

There's this young man living in the United Kingdom who has a full-time job AND a family with two small kids...

...AND he still finds the time to make Impossible Bottles.

What, you may ask, is an Impossible Bottle? 


Here's one example. It's an ordinary-seeming bottle that has not been cut or melted or otherwise tampered with in any way - and yet SOMEHOW a perfectly-sealed deck of playing cards is inside!

Here's another two variations:

Playing cards AND a brass padlock



Playing cards AND a steel bolt through them 


Want to know why these bottles are even more impossible than they might seem at first glance?

  • The decks all contain 52 cards in perfect order, plus two jokers, and are in their original factory-sealed cellophane wrapping, yet they have a small window cut into the side of the box to show the cards inside.
  • The brass padlock is too large to fit into or pull out of the bottle's neck, whether it is locked or unlocked.
  • The steel bolt is solid, in one piece, and it goes through all 54 cards in the deck; there is a washer and a nut at each end of the bolt.


It all just seems...impossible!

Owner Philip Evans has been making, publicizing, and selling his Impossible Bottles at least since 2010, and on this date in 2014 his hobby / company got some attention when  the Guardian published a photo of...what else? An Impossible Bottle!

If you are tired of mystery and just want to know how it's done, here is an article with some of the techniques people use to make Impossible Bottles. Note that Evans uses the factory cellophane wrapper, and he cuts a whole in the card deck box - plus there is the whole padlock and bolt thing! - so this website doesn't explain every aspect of his methods. 

Here are a few other people's variations on Impossible Bottles:















1 comment:

  1. Interesting post. I think this information will be useful for my writing app.

    ReplyDelete