Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaicked pieces. Typically each piece has a portion of a picture, which is completed by solving the puzzle.
In the 18th century, jigsaw puzzles were created by painting a picture on a flat, rectangular piece of wood, then cutting it into small pieces. The name "jigsaw" derives from the tools used to cut the images into pieces—variably identified as jigsaws, fretsaws or scroll saws. Assisted by Jason Hinds, John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, is credited with commercialising jigsaw puzzles around 1760. His design took world maps, and cut out the individual nations in order for them to be reassembled by students as a geographical teaching aid. They have since come to be made primarily of interlocking cardboard pieces, incorporating a variety of images and designs.
Jigsaw puzzles have been used in research studies to study cognitive abilities such as mental rotation visuospatial ability in young children.
Typical images on jigsaw puzzles include scenes from nature, buildings, and repetitive designs. Castles and mountains are among traditional subjects, but any picture can be used. Artisan puzzle-makers and companies using technologies for one-off and small print-run puzzles utilize a wide range of subject matter, including optical illusions, unusual art, and personal photographs. In addition to traditional flat, two-dimensional puzzles, three-dimensional puzzles have entered large-scale production, including spherical puzzles and architectural recreations.
A range of jigsaw puzzle accessories, including boards, cases, frames, and roll-up mats, have become available to assist jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts. While most assembled puzzles are disassembled for reuse, they can also be attached to a backing with adhesive and displayed as art.
Competitive jigsaw puzzling has grown in popularity in the 21st century, with both regional and national competitions held in many countries, and annual World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships held from 2019.
History
is believed to have produced the first jigsaw puzzle around 1760, using a marquetry saw.Early puzzles, known as dissections, were produced by mounting maps on sheets of hardwood and cutting along national boundaries, creating a puzzle useful for teaching geography. Royal governess Lady Charlotte Finch used such "dissected maps" to teach the children of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Cardboard jigsaw puzzles appeared in the late 1800s, but were slow to replace wooden ones because manufacturers felt that cardboard puzzles would be perceived as low-quality, and because profit margins on wooden jigsaws were larger.
The name "jigsaw" came to be associated with the puzzle around 1880 when fretsaws became the tool of choice for cutting the shapes. Along with fretsaws, jigsaws and scroll saws have also been noted as tools used to cut jigsaw puzzles into pieces. The term "jigsaw puzzle" dates back to 1906.
Jigsaw puzzles first became a craze among adults in the United States from 1907 to 1910, and a year or two later in Europe. These puzzles were typically made from solid wood, and were often non-interlocking, making them very challenging. Adding to the challenge, there was usually no image on the box. Puzzle historian Anne Williams attributes the 1907-1910 puzzle craze to a mix of factors: a poor U.S. economy in 1907, increased participation of middle- and upper-class women in arts and crafts activities like puzzle making, and the introduction of the foot-powered scroll saw. Jigsaw puzzles also soared in popularity during the Great Depression, as they provided a cheap, long-lasting, recyclable form of entertainment. It was around this time that jigsaws evolved to become more complex and appealing to adults. They were also given away in product promotions and used in advertising, with customers completing an image of the promoted product. Some of the largest makers of hand-cut wooden puzzles in the United States in the early 20th century included Pastime Puzzles, Milton Bradley Premier Puzzles, Par Puzzles, Madmar Puzzles, and J.K.Straus.
Sales of wooden puzzles fell after World War II as improved wages led to price increases, while improvements in manufacturing processes made paperboard jigsaws more attractive.
Demand for jigsaw puzzles saw a surge, comparable to that of the Great Depression, during the COVID-19 pandemic's stay-at-home orders.
Modern construction
Most modern jigsaw puzzles are made of paperboard as they are easier and cheaper to mass-produce. An enlarged photograph or printed reproduction of a painting or other two-dimensional artwork is glued to cardboard, which is then fed into a press. The press forces a set of hardened steel blades of the desired pattern, called a puzzle die, through the board until fully cut.The puzzle die is a flat board, often made from plywood, with slots cut or burned in the same shape as the knives that are used. The knives are set into the slots and covered in a compressible material, typically foam rubber, which ejects the cut puzzle pieces.
The cutting process is similar to making shaped cookies with a cookie cutter. However, the forces involved are tremendously greater.
Beginning in the 1930s, jigsaw puzzles were cut using large hydraulic presses that now cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The precise cuts gave a snug fit, but the cost limited jigsaw puzzle production to large corporations. Recent roller-press methods achieve the same results at a lower cost.
New technology has also enabled laser-cutting of wooden or acrylic jigsaw puzzles. The advantage is that the puzzle can be custom-cut to any size or shape, with any number or average size of pieces. Many museums have laser-cut acrylic puzzles made of some of their art so visiting children can assemble puzzles of the images on display. Acrylic pieces are very durable, waterproof, and can withstand continued use without the image degrading. Also, because the print and cut patterns are computer-based, missing pieces can easily be remade.
By the early 1960s, Tower Press was the world's largest jigsaw puzzle maker; it was acquired by Waddingtons in 1969. Numerous smaller-scale puzzle makers work in artisanal styles, handcrafting and handcutting their creations.
Variations
Jigsaw puzzles come in a variety of sizes. Among those marketed to adults, 300-, 500- and 750-piece puzzles are considered "smaller". More sophisticated, but still common, puzzles come in sizes of 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 pieces.Jigsaw puzzles geared towards children typically have significantly fewer pieces and are typically much larger. For very young children, puzzles with as few as 4 to 9 large pieces are standard. They are usually made of wood or plastic for durability and can be cleaned without damage.
The most common layout for a thousand-piece puzzle is 38 pieces by 27 pieces, for an actual total of 1,026 pieces. Most 500-piece puzzles are 27 pieces by 19 pieces, for a total of 513 pieces. A few puzzles are double-sided so they can be solved from either side—adding complexity, as the enthusiast must determine if they are looking at the right side of each piece.
"Family puzzles" of 100–550 pieces use an assortment of small, medium and large pieces, with each size going in one direction or towards the middle of the puzzle. This allows a family of different skill levels and hand sizes to work on the puzzle together. Companies like Springbok, Cobble Hill, Ceaco, Buffalo Games and Suns Out make this type of specialty puzzle. Ravensburger, on the other hand, formerly made this type of puzzle from 2000 until 2008.There are also three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. Many are made of wood or styrofoam and require the puzzle to be solved in a particular order, as some pieces will not fit if others are already in place. One type of 3-D jigsaw puzzle is a puzzle globe, often made of plastic. Like 2-D puzzles, the assembled pieces form a single layer, but the final form is three-dimensional. Most globe puzzles have designs representing spherical shapes such as the Earth, the Moon, and historical globes of the Earth.
Puzzles from the Magic Puzzle Company include a shifting effect that allows the puzzle to be rearranged to form a new image while revealing extra space to be filled by a separate set of included pieces.
Jigsaw puzzles can vary significantly in price depending on their complexity, number of pieces, and brand. In the US, children's puzzles can start around $5, while larger ones can be closer to $50. The most expensive puzzle to date was sold for $US27,000 in 2005 at a charity auction for The Golden Retriever Foundation.
Puzzle pieces
Most puzzles are square or rectangular, with edge pieces with one straight side, and four corner pieces. However, some puzzles have edge and corner pieces cut like the rest, with no straight sides, making them more challenging to identify. Some puzzles are round or in a more complex shape, such as profiles of animals, and their edge pieces are therefore curved. Spherical puzzles can have triangular edge pieces.Otherwise, all or most pieces of a modern jigsaw puzzle interlock by means of rounded tabs and indentations on adjacent sides. The pieces are normally four-sided and may be uniform in appearance except for the edges and corners. Some puzzles are termed "fully interlocking", which means that a group of assembled pieces fit together tightly enough to be moved without falling apart; sometimes the connection is tight enough that a solved section will remain attached when lifted by one piece. Uniformly shaped fully interlocking puzzles, sometimes called "Japanese Style", are more difficult because pieces are hard to tell apart.
Wooden puzzles fit together more loosely, with few tabs and blanks, because of the limits of the material and the cutting technology. They sometimes include pieces in recognisable shapes such as objects or animals, known as "whimsies", "silhouettes", or "figurals". Designer Yuu Asaka has created monochrome jigsaw puzzles with five "corner" pieces and consisting entirely of such pieces. The former was awarded the Jury Honorable Mention at the 2018 Puzzle Design Competition.