Solution to Can + Tab + Rig + Ian
Authors: Dan Katz and Jason Juang
Special acknowledgments to: Brandy Buckingham, Robbie Buckingham, Erin Rhode
Each set of pictures represents a set of three rebuses. The pictures and letters in each column have been alphabetized, so the solver muct sort out which elements go with which rebus. In these particular rebuses, all subtractions are performed on strings of consecutive letters within the overall string, which prevents some ambiguities.
Each of the sets of rebuses yields three types of answers: the name of a city, a noun, and a number. The rebuses and answers are listed below. The nationality associated with the city can be combined with the noun to produce a well-known two-word phrase or title. The number can be used as an index into that phrase to give a letter. The resulting letters spell the phrase ANTWERP BABY DEER. A baby deer is a fawn, and Antwerp is in Belgium, so the puzzle answer is BELGIAN FAWN. Which is apparently a breed of goat.
Fun fact: The original draft of this puzzle did not involve scrambled rebuses; instead, there were single rebuses that yielded foreign words, which were the translations of the second words in the appropriate national languages. However, one of our testers noted the existence of this Mystery Hunt puzzle from four years ago, which necessitated a full rewrite. The authors would like to acknowledge Erin Rhode who tracked down ALL of the images for the first version of the puzzle, most of which we had to throw away (though some of them were recycled for this version), and Robbie & Brandy Buckingham, who constructed rebuses for yet a THIRD version of the puzzle that we didn't end up using (if you found the nonparallelism of the final solution phrase a little inelegant, they had your back).
CUBAN CIGAR (9) = A
DUTCH OVEN (9) = N
EGYPTIAN COTTON (12) = T
IRISH WOLFHOUND (6) = W
SWEDISH MASSAGE (14) = E
STOCKHOLM |
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MASSAGE |
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FOURTEEN |
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RUSSIAN ROULETTE (8) = R
GREEK ALPHABET (8) = P
AMERICAN BANDSTAND (9) = B
BRAZILIAN WAX (11) = A
AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK (14) = B
MELBOURNE |
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OUTBACK |
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FOURTEEN |
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SPANISH FLY (10) = Y
FRENCH DOORS (7) = D
COLOMBIAN COFFEE (15) = E
GERMAN MEASLES (8) = E
CHINESE CHECKERS (14) = R
SHANGHAI |
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CHECKERS |
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FOURTEEN |
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