The original Panex puzzle is from the Japanese Magic Company
from the 1980's. Mathematicians at Bell Laboratories estimated
the  number  of  moves  to  swap  2  columns of order 10 to be 
27,564 <= N <= 31,537. It  came  in two  varieties: one with a
blue and a yellow pyramid of order 10 on  silver tiles; in the
gold version pieces of each color  look  alike i.e. no pyramid
is drawn on them), this is a little harder.
  The  original  Tower  of  Hanoi  puzzle is the  invention of
Edouard  Lucas  and  was sold as a toy in France in  1883. The
legend  of 64  disks in the great temple of Benares of the god 
Brahma is also his invention.

WWW: http://www.tux.org/~bagleyd/puzzles.html