Stories About Puzzles, Page 1

On Jigsaw Puzzles, Page 1	Click on small images to see larger images. Click on the "BACK" button to return. ESCAPE FROM FRAMES
The stories are listed in the order they were received, most recent last.
See later stories, on Page Two.

The first story for our page comes from Vicky:
Jigsaw puzzles have provided a lot of good family fun for us. My youngest used to take a piece and hide it in her hand as we got close to finishing a puzzle so she could be the hero and put in the last piece!
Meagan was really too little to do the big puzzles. We would find her a set of pieces to work on, but it was very hard for her. She wanted to be with the rest of the family and a part of the activity, so she would work away at her little set of pieces while the rest of us did the puzzle. We would get competitive as we were close to finishing a puzzle, and this was the part where Meagan was really left out. There would only be room for one hand in the puzzle at a time as we filled in the last area. Each of us would have a piece in hand, ready and waiting for a chance to put it in as quick as the last hand would move out of the way. Then, when all the pieces were gone, there would still be one hole. After an anticlimactic lull, with everyone about to start looking on the floor, Meagan would move in, dramatically hold out her hand with the piece and plug it in, saying, "ta da!" It was a delightful end to a puzzle! She did this more than once, and it had the same effect each time!

From Jim:
I love to work jigsaw puzzles, but, when I look back over the time I've spent around them, what I really remember is the good times with family, relatives, and friends. When I was a child, I might not be able to help with the puzzle very much, but I remember being around, while the grownups were working on a puzzle, perhaps reading a comic book or a Little Golden Book when I was very young, or playing with cousins or siblings, but I would also be listening with one ear to the stories that the grownups would be telling each other. I didn't always understand everything, but enough for it to be interesting. The thing about it, though, was that people had to work hard in those days, some out in the fields, some at a workplace or business, the women cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, minding us kids, etc., and there was very little leisure time. This was before television, and we would only listen to the radio at night, when a particular program, like "Fibber McGee and Molly" or "The Shadow" would come on. Puzzles were usually done on Saturdays or Sundays, when the work was done, and the grownups seemed more relaxed and had more time for us young'uns. So they seemed to me to be "very special times".

From "D & G":
"D" remembered that, "in 1941 we had a large Tuco puzzle which we put together on the floor of an upstairs' bedroom by lamplight (no electricity until 1951). We owned a Challenge Puzzle, which we probably worked 5 times. We had more Tuco puzzles but "D" gave them away--mostly to his Mom's nursing home. Probably our "prize" puzzle (not Tuco) is a 4000 piece puzzle. It took us about three months to put it together. It used up our whole dining room table with the leaves up so we had to live our lives around that puzzle!

From Jim:
Not very many people are submitting "stories", that is, anything about doing, acquiring, finding, losing, selling, enjoying, or whatever, puzzles. Upon reflection, though, I realize that it's hard to describe or tell a story about doing puzzles. The favorite thing about puzzle-ing for me is that in our family, it's usually a family activity, in which the puzzle-workers, and maybe one or two other occasional participants, work on the puzzle, and TALK...just talk. If we were just sitting looking at each other, we wouldn't talk in quite the same free-flowing, un-self-conscious way as we can when we're working a puzzle. It's almost as though the puzzle is a kind of "focus", allowing people to think and dream and reminisce together. When I was a boy, before the days of television, people would sit together doing a puzzle or shelling peas or shucking corn or sewing or mending, and remembering the year that so-and-so did such-and-such, or how all the signs point to a hard winter this year, or when was it that Uncle Tom pulled that famous stunt of his? That's what I remember about jigsaw puzzles.

From Verl Cook's "About Me" Page (with permission):
I grew up in Remus, Michigan during World War II and solving jigsaw puzzles was one of my favorite pastimes. My mother and I constantly had a jigsaw puzzle on a cardtable. Two of my favorite jigsaw puzzles that I remember were both Jaymar cardboard puzzles. One was from a set of 4 Wild West Puzzles called "Custer's Last Stand" and the other was a Jaymar Hobby wwii puzzle called "P-51 Mustang". They were put together so many times that eventually they were both tossed in the garbage can because they had too many pieces missing. I searched for a long time, but I found both puzzles complete and they are now two of my favorite puzzles in my collection. I got away from puzzles while I was going to college, getting married and raising a family. However, about 10 years ago, I found some old puzzles at a Midland flea market, purchased them and have been an addict ever since. I currently own over 200 wwii puzzles including several Tuco's, Perfect Picture, Wilkie, Jaymar, Pressman, Whitman and Hart puzzles, along with others. I also actively collect several depression era puzzle series such as "Jig of the Week", "Every Week", "Picture Puzzle Weekly", "Muddle", "See America First", and "Jiggety Jig" puzzles. I recently had about 60 wwii puzzles displayed at the Midland Center For The Arts Museum for about 4 months. I love the hobby and would be more than willing to share stories or information to anyone interested. Please feel free to contact me.

Thanks to Kathy for this story: Mar 27 2000 Childhood experiences with puzzles convinced me that under no circumstances would I ever be desperate enough to 'do' puzzles. In the rural South puzzles were done by grandmothers; in darkened rooms with shades drawn to keep the heat out. They set up wobbly cardtables in some out of the way corner. They had to use a floor lamp in order to see anything. So more heat. and no redeeming fresh air. You fell asleep between pieces. "Sweetie, does that piece really fit there"? Visiting grandchildren had an obligation to do puzzles with Grandmoma. It was a real struggle to do puzzle with Grandmoma after lunch in the still heat. " Now watch the table, honey, don't bump." Grandmoma liked 1000 piece puzzles best. "You can really get your teeth into them" "You get a lot of entertainment for your money." She liked the ones with the dark mountains, and the dark water and the dark fuzzy bushes. I'd never even seen a mountain or a dark lake. I only liked bushes with lots of flowers. Puzzles were certainly losers. I didn't touch another puzzle for 25 years. Revelation came to me one rainy afternoon in New England with friends and a round Springbok puzzle of tropical birds-no dark bushes, no dark trees, and no dark birds. Such fun pieces-no 2 alike. Such a tactile experience feeling the pieces. When you found the spot that piece fit-you knew it. We laughed, told jokes. We finished in time for supper. Since I've been buying puzzles-I NEVER get dark mountains or dark fuzzy anything. I want my puzzles big and bright with pictures of things I like. My puzzles are FUN. My puzzles have great pieces and shapes. Would you believe I must have 200+ puzzles and not a dark mountain to the lot?

Thanks to Rosemary for this story: May 25, 2000 --- Hi! I found this page while desperately looking for 3 copies of an old Springbok Puzzle called the "Christmas House". I bought my copy of the puzzle new when it came out somewhere around the Christmas of 1973. At the time I had one little girl who was a year old. I did the puzzle the first time that Christmas by myself at nights when my husband was working late. It seemed to take me forever because it was a 1000 piece puzzle. It was my first real experience of doing a "real" puzzle. Every year after that, I had help doing the puzzle. Three more little girls came along and it was our tradition to do the puzzle every year together at Christmas time. The puzzle showed a house at Christmas time with the front opened up to show the preparations for Christmas going on........Grandma baking cookies in the kitchen, Grandpa and mama decorating the tree in the living room, kids wrapping presents in the bedrooms, etc. As the girls grew older the puzzle got put together faster all the time. They new the pieces by heart practically. They would each take a room of the puzzle to be responsible for. After it was finished they would have puzzle races by taking rooms apart and doing them over seeing who could finish the fastest. We still do it together every year. Consequently, the puzzle has become very worn from lots of love. Now that the girls are older and starting their own families, I would like to surprise them by trying to locate and purchase this puzzle second hand for each of them. I have found one but am still looking for three more. Do you know of this puzzle and where I might find some copies? Thanks!
[If you want to reply to Rosemary's inquiry or any others, just send your message by e-mail or US Mail to one of the addresses below, and we will either post it or forward it. Jim McW]

Thanks to "M" for this story: July 4, 2000 --- Hello! I am a jigsaw fanatic. I just love to put them together. When I am finished, I write inside, or on the bottom of the box, I date when I completed it and either note that it was OK (meaning that all the pieces are there) or I would tell how many pieces were missing and their location. I would tell how many to count over from the left or right, and how many up or down. This was only my way of returning a piece to the correct puzzle when I found one. My passion is really hard puzzles. At least, I think they are hard. Back in the early '70s, a friend of mine loaned me her puzzle. It was titled "Little Red Riding Hood" and was round, all one shade of red, and the holes might come in two parts as well as the knobs. I worked and worked. Finally when I had used all the pieces in sight, I realized that quite a few were missing. My pet cat got ill and died. Since I wanted to know how such a pampered animal could pass away, I had an autopsy done. He had eaten the missing pieces.

(submitted 12 July 2000)--- Thanks to Frances and Merle Main for this article from the "Dayton Leisure", Sunday, April 10, 1966:

"A DALI IN JIG TIME"

Name-dropping is always a fairly popular indoor sport. But, imagine, if you will, the impact of something like this: "Just put my Salvador Dali together last night." Or, "Now that we've had enough of that Filippo Lippi, I've decided to try a Picasso or a Jackson Pollock instead."

There's a new look in art connoisseurs. How to tell? They are the ones with the jigsaw puzzles. It's the newest 'In' fad - though some prefer to call it intellectual exercise. Truth is, the ancient Chinese invented it.

Six years ago, devout puzzle workers were still getting steamed up over pictures with people in them. "All of a sudden," says a game manufacturer's development engineer in New York, "they didn't want that kind any more."

That was about the time New Yorker Katie Lewin, born in Columbus and a onetime reporter for the Pontiac, Michigan Daily Press, dreamed up a sophisticated variation on this age-old game. She would reproduce famous art treasures in puzzle form.

Art museum gift shops, in particular, "can't keep them in stock," manager of the one at the Chicago Art Institute told me. Winston Churchill had completed one showing the Adoration of the Magi before his death. Actress Katharine Cornell was struggling with the same design when her doorbell rang. Noel Coward had discovered a newer one - Dali's Double Image and was bringing it to her.

Persuading museums to give her permission to reproduce some of their great works seems to have been no problem at all. Mrs. Lewin went to the National Gallery in Washington to use the Adoration of the Magi, by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. No trouble - they even lent her a transparency. Most museums are co-operative if reproduction is really good, the Rye, New York woman executive discovered.

From 15th century art, Mrs. Lewin made a leap smack dab into the 20th century. She found what she wanted in a briar patch of a Jackson Pollock that hangs in the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo. Chopped up into 340 pieces, it looks like complete chaos. Guaranteed to drive you mad or cure you. Who knows?

"I got nervous," Mrs. Lewin admits. So she enclosed a print of the painting. For a time, the Pollock was No. 1 on the puzzle parade.

When Salvador Dali was in New York some time ago, he told Mrs. Lewin he had been "giving a lot of thought to ginger poozles." He created a painting especially for the purpose - a surrealist view of gloomy, harlequin-like figures that merge, when you squint, into a portrait of Voltaire.

Most of the puzzles-with-paintings are mass produced in the round on a cardboard base to sell for around $3.50, but some more elegant ones are done on wood for the status-packed gift trade. At Christmas, for example, actor Gregory Peck picked up a dozen wood puzzles at $75.00 each.

And, if you feel nothing is quite good enough to suit your taste, you could have a painting in oils on wood. Why not commission your own Dali? Surely, any good carpenter could handle the jigsaw job.

Thanks to "els" for this story: July 23, 2000 --- I've always loved doing jigsaw puzzles. It's a childhood thing. My grandmother often had a puzzle set up in her living room. It was such a thrill as a child to "find" a piece. Now I have a little "grandguy" and I'm hoping he'll experience the same kind of pleasure at Grandma's. I usually have one set up on the porch in the summer, great for rainy afternoons. In any case I've picked up a puzzle here and there over the years. I especially like the ones w/o picture guides. Much more fun and what a great surprise when it's completed. I just came to the realization that I actually have a small collection (about a dozen). Mostly Tuco but I have a Viking, in a beautiful silver box and the one I first described to you, Jig Deluxe [See No. 23, Q & A Page 2]. We are not far from Lockport and one day maybe I'll take a drive. I saw pictures of the old factory on one of the web sites [the TUCO Website]. It's fun to realize that there are other people out there who have similar interests. I've gotten my puzzles at yard sales and estate sales. I guess it's time I made a little catalogue of the things I have.
[Note: Lockport, New York was the home of Tuco Workshops. Jim McW]

Some "wise guy" (my uncle) sent in this joke: 12 August, 2000 ---
TIGER PUZZLE
One morning this woman called her boyfriend and said, "Please come over and help me. I have this awesome jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to start it." Her boyfriend asked, "What is it a puzzle of?" The woman said "From the picture on the box, it's a tiger." The boyfriend figures that he's pretty good at puzzles, so he heads over to her place.
She lets him in the door and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then he studies the box. He then turns to her and says, "First, no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to show you how to assemble these pieces to look like the picture of that tiger. Second, I'd advise you to relax, have a cup of coffee, and put all these corn flakes back in the box."

Thanks to "J.H." for this story: 17 September, 2000 --- Hi Jim, I just "clicked on" to your site and read your "Q& A" page. Thanks so much for posting it. I went to the internet auction site and looked at the puzzles you mentioned and guess what? I bid on them. That's not what I'm looking for but they are so unique and different that I'm going to try to be high bidder. I collect watermelon things and that puzzle alone will just add to my collection of things. I may not make that one, I'll probably just sit it on my watermelon table. I have a room in my home completely decked out with watermelons. Almost anything imaginable is in there. The puzzle I'm looking for is just for me to make, glue and hang in this room. I have other pictures hanging up but I just wanted to have one using my own hands. Can you understand where I'm coming from? Thanks, for all your help and I'll be returning back to your site often. Also I'll be sure to tell all my puzzle friends to "click on" to your site. "J.H."
**************
Note from Jim McW: I obtained permission from the seller to post a picture of these interesting puzzles, "Incredible Edibles", by Avalon Hill Games:

Thanks to "Bill Abel" for this story: 26 November, 2000 ---
Once I was talking to a friend who had worked, as a young man, at The Tuco Work Shops in Lockport,NY. He told me that while boxing the puzzles a co-worker would sometimes take a piece out and toss it on the floor and then pack the puzzle as if nothing was wrong. The way he tells the story it seems this was something they did for amusement. So next time you find a TUCO puzzle with a piece missing think of them and the mischief that one person would never dream of,but two young men are sure to hatch.
bill abel
**************
Note from Jim McW: I would hope that this never happens, but I have seen workers in other businesses do similar things. I don't recall my family ever buying a Tuco puzzle which was missing any pieces. Of course, very few Tuco's exist today, which have not been opened and put together, at least once (although we did just acquire our first unopened Tuco! ).
I just assumed that the pieces were (and are) automatically boxed by machine. Does anyone have any information about the procedures used in boxing the pieces in puzzle factories?

Folks, we really need some more items on these pages. This might be a story about a funny thing that happened while people were putting a puzzle together, or about how someone acquired a puzzle, or a reminiscence about jigsaw parties years ago, or about a person you knew years ago, who loved to do jigsaw puzzles, or your thoughts about jigsaw puzzles, the people who work them, the companies which make them--the sky's the limit!

See the Main Story Page.
See Story Page 2.

Chris McCann's book,Master Pieces: the Art History of Jigsaw Puzzles.

BACK to last TOUR Page

Next TOUR Page