Category:Jigsaw puzzles, puzzle blocks and and geometrical puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles and block puzzles.

Geometrical puzzles

Geometrical puzzles, where one arranges geometrical tiles to make shapes, are probably as old as building blocks, and can be thought of as their two-dimensional equivalent.

Block Puzzles

Another development of commercial building blocks was the puzzle block, where a set of blocks could have a picture divided into squares and stuck onto the sides of the blocks. A single set of blocks coudl support up to six dfferent pictures (although often they would use fewer pictures and use the other sides for letters or numbers).

Jigsaw puzzles

The jigsaw puzzle is supposed to date form John Spilsbury's "Europe divided into its kingdoms, etc." (1766), an educational map of Europe, cut up into individual countries.

The Jigsaw puzzle was originally made by cutting up an image using a fretsaw (or "jig-saw") by hand.

Jigsaw puzzles underwent a boom in popularity with the invention of bladed press tools that could convert an image printed on thick card into a puzzle in one operation. This made them far cheaper to produce.

At one point, Meccano Limited released a rather dangerous-looking puzzle maker that allowed people at home to make their own puzzles without a fretsaw, by repeatedly cutting a puzzle piece side into a printed card picture.

In the Museum

For the purposes of the museum collections, we tend to class picture jigsaw puzzles as "games" rather than toys, as their play has a definite objective (the completion of the puzzle) – the museum tends to consider "toys" as things that allow a more free-form style of play and exploration. This puts jigsaws outside our remit of "toys and models".

As a result, the museum does not normally deal with jigsaw puzzles, unless they tie in to other subjects and can be used as display backdrops.