i have farmed all of the torques/ropes x2. average for me was about 1 day per. part of the reason i think people have such a hard time with them is not being good at opening brown caskets. some helpful hints for brown caskets:

if you have 6 chances and the first 2 checks give "first digit is a, b, c" and second digit is "x, y, z" it is a guaranteed win if you do the following:
-four chances remaining first must use the guess "b-y". if not correct it will say lower or higher, let's say it gives higher.
-three chances remaining second must use the guess "c-x". if not correct it will say lower or higher, if lower it must be "b-z", if it is higher there are two chances remaining for the only two remaining possibilities: "c-y" and "c-z". If you started out with only 5 chances in this situation then depending on whether it is higher or lower in your guesses you will either win it or have to decide between 1 of 2 #s.

if you have 6 chances and the first check says one of the digits is "x" start off with "x-a" where "a" is 1 if x is >5 and 8 if x is < 5. if x = 5, a = 5 (if x was 0, start with 50). so for instance first check gives "one of the digits is 8". so you choose 81. guessing after that is in a leap of 4. so for instance if it is lower than 81 then you'd choose 58 (58, 68, 78, and 80 were #s in order less than 81, so 58 is a leap of 4). if it is higher at this point then guess by a leap of 2 or 78. the next choice has to be either 68 or 80. if on the other hand it had been lower than 58, then leap of 2 down to 38. higher is 48, but if less jump down another leap of 2 to 28. if not it, it has to be 18 or 38 for your 6th chance. If you started out with only 5 chances in this situation then depending on whether it is higher or lower in your guesses you will either win it or have to decide between 1 of 2 #s.

if you get a range check "the number is between a-b and y-z" then the actual number is almost always really close to halfway between those two #s. so for example you get the range check "the number is between 50 and 70" you choose 60. it says higher so you leap by 4 and choose 64. it says lower so you leap by 2 and choose 62. after that it must be 61 or 63. if you only had 2 chances remaining after you chose 60 (you got some garbage clues before), then only leap by 2 to 62 and make your final guess to be either 61 or 63.

if you get 1st digit is odd/even and 2nd digit is odd/even as your first two clues, then just keep getting clues and hope that they give you something good like a specific # (1st digit is 3) because this situation will almost always result in failure due to the large # of possibilities. if the 3rd clue is a specific # then put the other # in the middle (for example clue 1: first digit is odd, clue 2: second digit is even, clue 3: one of the digits is 7; so you guess 74 is as close to the middle as you can get). If you only have one guess left at this point you have a 1 out of 2 shot of getting it right. If you have two guesses left you win.

some people like to use some program that someone came up with to help with guessing. i just used plain old logic and it worked great. and remember, this wasn't just for 1 item, I got all of the items, times 2.

hope this helps.