This is one of the many Parker Brothers Pastime wooden jigsaw puzzles manufactured
during the 1920's and 1930's.
According to Anne Williams in her book "The Jigsaw Puzzle - Piecing Together a History,"
these were cut by hand mostly by women workers, each of whom would incorporate various kinds of "whimsies" -
figural piece shapes - into the puzzle.
This one is called "The Mail Coach" and has about 65 pieces.
According to Anne the first jigsaw "craze" lasted from about 1907 to 1910,
followed by another during the Great Depression from 1932 to the spring of 1933.
Hand-cut wooden-backed jigsaws - particularly those containing whimsies and employing other devious tricks -
are far more interesting than the modern, mass-produced die-cut cardboard puzzles
one typically finds crowding the shelves today.
Some are very collectible, commanding hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
High-quality jigsaw puzzles can be obtained from a few companies:
Stave has recently released affordable versions of two of their tricky designs,
Seahorse Shanty,
and Fishbowl Frenzy.
In each case, the "frame" can be assembled more than one way,
and only some or one permits the seahorses or fish to
be built inside the frame.
Hood's Sarsparilla Rainy Day / Balloon Puzzle -
a factory and carriage scene on one side in brilliant color, and a balloon sighting on the other.
I have two copies, each missing pieces.
They are cut slightly differently and one cannot substitute pieces to make a single complete puzzle.
Singer Buffalo Puzzle
Pageant of the States
Here are examples (I don't have) of a Schutzmarke Katharina box cover and pieces.
Note the picture of Katharina (the name is in red across the picture), and the piece shapes similar to those of the K Puzzles.
Another K Puzzle - a hunting scene called Op 't Spor - "On the Scent" - 84 pieces:
You can see more vintage jigsaws at
Bob Armstrong's Old Puzzles website,
Joe Seymour's site,
and
Puzzlehistory.com.
Bits and Pieces sold this very nice wooden jigsaw called Rocky Tree.
Another style of puzzle is a set of cubes where each of a block's six faces contributes a part of six different pictures that
can be formed.
This set of scenes from the "Madeline" books is a good puzzle for children.
This puzzle presents one nice challenge based on violating a preconception.
Changeable Charlie
(try Changeable Charlie online),
first produced in the 1940's,
is a classic toy similar to this type of puzzle.
I had one as a child.
It's not really a puzzle, since the blocks are meant to form many different pictures from component features.
It was based on an earlier design called "Ole Million Face" created in 1925 by cartoonist Carey Orr.
At
Judy's Old Wood Toys website,
I learned that
Changeable Charlie was produced by the Gaston Manufacturing Co. of Cincinnati OH, which was acquired by Halsam Products Co.,
who also acquired the Embossing Company in 1955, and who were in turn acquired by Playskool in 1962.
Playskool was purchased by the Milton Bradley Co., which sold itself to Hasbro.
There was also a Changeable Charlie's Aunt.
Some of the first 3-dimensional jigsaws were dissected spheres such as this one.
This is called "A Broken Heart - a 3-Dimension Technisolid Puzzle" and it was "designed and made only by Puzzle Guild, Inc., Chicago."
I have 8-pc. and 27-pc. Flummox Cubes, bought years ago at Games of Berkeley in California.
This is a square-cross-section stick that has been sawn into interlocking pieces. The stick is very flexible, and rests in a stand.
Century of Progress 1934 - Sphere
made by Puzzlecraft of Chicago IL.
The Wonder Block
A block of wood cut into nesting tables and chairs has appeared often.
The Scrambled Egg also came in a smaller size called Bantam Eggs.
I have a red one and a blue one.
It's hefty and beautiful and a part of mechanical puzzle history!
Rocky tells the story of how he got into making mechanical puzzles from brass
Bits and Pieces offered this affordable version of T-Dof by
Rocky Chiaro.
It's a brass golf ball in eight pieces, held together by the spindle when assembled.
The Bogey Ball is a plastic golf ball divided into eight interlocking pieces.
Where the T-Dof's pieces have rectilinear flanges that don't really grip each other, the flanges on the pieces of
the Bogey Ball have a more traditional jigsaw-type fit.
Jeruel also offers a set of 3D Crystal Puzzles.
This wooden apple is from the Pacific Puzzle Company.
These are 3D animals made of interlocking plastic pieces:
There are
a whole lot of different animals available!
I got this cowboy from auction
I believe his mate is this cowgirl (which I do not have):
Rubik's calls this their "3-D Jigsaw."
Assemble jigsaw pieces on the surface of a cube.
This is the Executive Mental Block puzzle by Benjor.
A mahogany cube has been sliced up into a 3x3x4 assembly, but the pieces do not interlock.
Here is a similar kind of jigsaw-type where the pieces are figures:
World of Dinosaurs by Anything's Puzzable
Another figural jigsaw, called 25 Ghosts.
Tessera
(now Busy Beetles from DaMert) - 1996
by John Osborn.
Assemble the Escher-esque interlocking beetle shapes to tile the plane.
Rick Peterson has a site devoted to the Tessera puzzle,
where he explains the taxonomy of the eight different beetles.
Find more Tessera info and see some patterns at "Rajordan.com."
You can find a great deal of material on the web regarding tiling of the plane:
Others I don't have...
This four-piece plastic puzzle is called Oskar's Fractiles.
It was designed by Oskar van Deventer.
Find a way to insert the three identical yellow pieces into the black piece and form a symmetric assembly.
This simple 4-piece jigsaw from Binary Arts is ingenious.
This design has appeared in many guises, in wood as well as metal
(see the Hanayama "Spiral" for example).
This 9-piece jigsaw-like assembly with a (licensed) Star-Wars theme is a Frito Lay premium,
and is part of a larger
collection of four such assemblies in different colors.
Each piece contains an image and image fragments of neighboring pieces. The images have a 3D effect, and
when held up to the light, the images
are strikingly clear.
The Dotti Puzzle -
made in Merton Devon England by
Active Education, distributed by
Gazebo Games (wholesale only - requires id/password) -
fundemental.biz has it - it's positioned as a workplace management training tool.
24 white pieces with no instructions or solutions, but the box claims it forms a "solid recognisable shape when completed."
The box cautions one to "clear the mind completely" and "make no assumptions," and claims that
"each piece has blue dots on one side and red on the other."
I suppose one's assumptions are supposed to be an impediment to solving this puzzle, but
it didn't really seem that hard.
Perhaps some sloppy piece-cutting gave away the game for me.
The "Diagonal Maze" puzzles
Lost in a Jigsaw - Escape from Eden, and Lost in a Jigsaw II - Survival of the Fittest
were issued by
Buffalo Games, Inc. (BGI)
in 1997 and 2001 respectively.
They are based on one of the ideas covered in Donald Scott's 1994 U.S. patent
5351957 -
which says,
"correct placement ... is determined from information available only in the sum of all the correctly assembled [clusters]."
Clusters of pieces are assembled into squares which can then be joined in multiple positions.
The correct position for each cluster must be determined by figuring out the clues offered in the illustrations
revealed on the completed clusters.
Games Magazine had voted Escape from Eden the "Best Puzzle of the Year."
This jigsaw is in the shape of a circle and has over 500 pieces.
It is called "Little Red Riding Hood's Hood" and is solid red in color.
Way back in my college years, I assembled one of these with the help of my girlfriend of the time.
Man, was it tedious! But we were determined, and eventually completed it.
I think we then shellaced it, and that copy is long gone.
Springbok also made an all-white version called Snow White Without the Seven Dwarves, an all-brown one called
Close-up of the Three Bears, an all-blue one called Little Boy Blue Coming Home,
and a reflective-surfaced version called Enchantment.
You can see these and other Springbok jigsaws at Mike Helland's
Spingbok Fever site,
and at
"Courtney's" site.
This is a "Shmuzzle Puzzle" called "On the Rocks."
All the pieces are the same shape - interlocking lizards a la Escher.