RAY: Look, it's time for my brother to tell us what the puzzler was last week.

TOM: Aw come on.

RAY: Because believe it or not I don't remember it.

TOM: You don't?

RAY: No.

TOM: Well, you know what? I don't either.

RAY: Catherine!

TOM: I don't have any idea.

RAY: Wait a minute. I have a note here.

TOM: Wait, I have a little idea.

RAY: I have a note from Catherine.

TOM: I would say it was non-automotive. I don't have any idea.

RAY: I don't either so I guess we can't...

TOM: Well, skip it.

RAY: Actually, this was a historic, folkloric, and pretty tricky little puzzler, I thought. Here it is.

TOM: Yeah, keep going. I haven't got it yet.

RAY: A few years ago I was vacationing in upstate New York. I was really on parole, but I ?? and I found myself in a sleepy little town called Cold Springs.

TOM: I still don't remember it.

RAY: And whilst I was there, I went to an antique auction where they claim to have some rare and priceless...

TOM: The sled!

RAY: There you go -- antiques.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: I don't know how they are going to price them -- if they are priceless, how can you put a price on them.

TOM: Yeah, well.

RAY: Well, they put a big price.

TOM: That's the challenge.

RAY: That's the challenge. Anyway they claim to have stuff that collectors would really want, and one of the items that comes up for auction is a child's sled, a hand-made sled, a wooden sled that the auctioneer claimed was made by none other than George Washington himself.

TOM: Oh I thought you were going to say Norm Abrams.

RAY: Abram.

TOM: Abram.

RAY: Anyway he turns the sled over and carved into one of the wooden slats is are you ready for this? G. Washington.

TOM: Good. This is an interesting question.

RAY: G. Washington, September 10, 1752. Now I remember from the sixth grade that the square route of three is George Washington's birthday, which is 1732. OK, so that would make him 20 years old and it should all fit and it all seemed right, right? It was the reason at the age of 20 not having launched his military career as of yet, he was probably sitting around what...

TOM: Making sleds.

RAY: Making sleds. When you were 20, you were driving sleds. He was making sleds maybe for his own kids or for a -- you know little John Quincy Adams or one of those guys. Who knows who the sled was for. So I'm ready to bid like 20 bucks on the thing. I figured what the hell.

TOM: Yeah, shoot the moon.

RAY: When someone in the crowd stands up and says it's a fake.

TOM: Oooh.

RAY: He was right and how did he know?

TOM: I mean I remember when...

RAY: Now you could infer that George Washington didn't have any woodworking skills, but that information is not present in this little statement.

TOM: No, it isn't. Everything is here. I know everything is here. I mean I thought of when you stated this puzzler last week, I thought of things like his name wasn't really George. His name was like Ira, and it shouldn't have -- or Gary and it shouldn't have said G. Washington, but I dismissed that.

RAY: Yeah, I mean everyone knows his name was George Washington otherwise he wouldn't be the father of the country.

TOM: So maybe he changed it though when he was 21. I thought of stupid stuff like that.

RAY: Could have been but that information was not there either.

TOM: That information wasn't there.

RAY: The information that was there...

TOM: Is the date.

RAY: There you go.

TOM: OK, now 17 -- the only thing -- I mean this doesn't make any sense. How about there was no September 10 in 1752?

RAY: Exactly right.

TOM: No! Get out of here! Of course there was.

RAY: Everyone overslept that day, and they missed a whole day.

TOM: Missed a whole day.

RAY: No, in fact...

TOM: No.

RAY: The period of September 3 to September 12 was omitted from the calendar in 1752.

TOM: What are you talking about?

RAY: By worldwide decree they decided to skip those days to make the calendar correct. The seasons were not falling in the right time. The calendar had gotten out of sync with the...

TOM: No, that can't be.

RAY: Yeah. Everything had gotten out of...

TOM: Who sent you this?

RAY: G. Washington. Mt. Vernon.

TOM: I mean that would mean -- I mean even in today's world with e-mail and satellites, you couldn't coordinate something like that. I mean how did they do it in 1752? It takes six months to get the word to Europe.

RAY: Well, they didn't decide this in a fort night.

TOM: I guess they didn't.

RAY: This was the result of a conference, which undoubtedly took place in Europe, probably in Trent. It was decided collaboration among world leaders and...

TOM: Send mail to Raymond Magliozzi, care of the station. I don't want to have anything to do with it because this sounds bogus.

RAY: What was happening quite simply is that summer wasn't starting until August. No, I mean there are certain points of the calendar where we have the winter solstice; we have the spring equinox that is supposed to occur.

TOM: Whenever, yeah.

RAY: And the certain date and that date is determined by when the sun crosses the Meridian or crosses rather the sun crosses the celestial equator, that begins spring except it wasn't happening on March 20.

TOM: Well, why didn't they change that?

RAY: Well, they did by knocking off all these days. They fixed it just like that.

TOM: Bingo.

RAY: Who's our winner? Come on. Let's not belabor this anymore than we have to. I mean if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I can take it. Gee, I hope I'm not wrong.

TOM: The winner is Alan Stein.

RAY: I can't take the embarrassment anymore. I really can't.

TOM: I don't blame you. The winner is Alan Stein from Kingston, New York. Al, you are going to win a copy of our latest album, a collection of our favorite calls about couples and their cars. It's called Men are from GM, Women are from Ford. By the way don't call the office and ask for these. They are only available through your station and through the Car Talk Shameless Commerce Division, whose number we give you at the end of the show. I mean evidently Dougie was on the phone all day getting calls about can we get this album, and he doesn't even know what it is.

RAY: No, and he's probably interrupted his calls to his bookie.