Thank you for your research. I was particularly interested in your facts and speculations about the types of woods used. I also liked the idea that the pieces for "Garden & Fountain" were extra thick. This reminded me of the "Tuco Tripl-Thick" brand of cardboard puzzles that my family favoured during my childhood. Your illustrative pictures today were great. I liked best #s 5, 10, 15, and 20. I sympathize with you re: how the desire to finish a puzzle started to wane when you had a lot of similarly shaped pieces left that were all of approximately the same cream colour.
Thanks, Greg. I am finding that the thickness of the pieces doesn't seem to affect how challenging they are but it does make assembly feel like a more luxurious experience.
It was difficult to give up on completing this puzzle, especially since I still had it half-assembled on the table for the next couple of days while I was doing the research (and also had other stuff to do.) I would see it there and half-heartedly look for another piece to fill in. It was only when I realized that it wasn't just that the puzzle is so challenging but that part of my problem was that this is summertime, and both the colours and its indoor topic of it are too sedate for this season.
I think that the puzzle's challenge will be more welcome in the winter. Eventually I came to think of putting it away as a postponement of completion rather than giving up on it. But in retrospect, I wish that I had put it back in its box semi-assembled rather than disassembled. I wonder how I'll feel doing that first part all over again when I do try to complete it.
Thank you for describing the process for cutting wooden puzzles and their popularity in the 1930s. Do you know if the folks who started their own one-person jigsaw businesses during the Depression would have used a treadle fret-saw or would they have had something powered by electricity then?
In the early 1930s two things happened - jigsaw puzzles became very fashionable and a lot of people were unemployed. As I understand it, most of the craftspeople who started jigsaw puzzle businesses in the 1930s were people who already had a scroll saw and skills from when that style of cutting was popular for architecture and cabinet-making. That would be mainly be in the Victorian era but continued up to about 1920. I think (but am not sure) that electric scroll saws were available but pricey by then but most of the puzzle-makers probably were using treadle machines. But I suspect a few inventive cutters may have modified their treadle machines by attaching a motor and a foot-powered speed controller (like the new-fangled electric sewing machines were beginning to have at that time.)
In fact, there are at least two puzzle-makers who still use old treadle scroll saws - Simon and Claudia Stocken (puzzleplex.co.uk) are the grandchildren of Enid Stocken, a renowned British cutter from the 1920s-'70s. The still make hand-cut jigsaw puzzles that feature their grandmother's old-school styles of cutting design and they make puzzles on old cast-iron treadle machines.
Thank you for your research. I was particularly interested in your facts and speculations about the types of woods used. I also liked the idea that the pieces for "Garden & Fountain" were extra thick. This reminded me of the "Tuco Tripl-Thick" brand of cardboard puzzles that my family favoured during my childhood. Your illustrative pictures today were great. I liked best #s 5, 10, 15, and 20. I sympathize with you re: how the desire to finish a puzzle started to wane when you had a lot of similarly shaped pieces left that were all of approximately the same cream colour.
Thanks, Greg. I am finding that the thickness of the pieces doesn't seem to affect how challenging they are but it does make assembly feel like a more luxurious experience.
It was difficult to give up on completing this puzzle, especially since I still had it half-assembled on the table for the next couple of days while I was doing the research (and also had other stuff to do.) I would see it there and half-heartedly look for another piece to fill in. It was only when I realized that it wasn't just that the puzzle is so challenging but that part of my problem was that this is summertime, and both the colours and its indoor topic of it are too sedate for this season.
I think that the puzzle's challenge will be more welcome in the winter. Eventually I came to think of putting it away as a postponement of completion rather than giving up on it. But in retrospect, I wish that I had put it back in its box semi-assembled rather than disassembled. I wonder how I'll feel doing that first part all over again when I do try to complete it.
Thank you for describing the process for cutting wooden puzzles and their popularity in the 1930s. Do you know if the folks who started their own one-person jigsaw businesses during the Depression would have used a treadle fret-saw or would they have had something powered by electricity then?
In the early 1930s two things happened - jigsaw puzzles became very fashionable and a lot of people were unemployed. As I understand it, most of the craftspeople who started jigsaw puzzle businesses in the 1930s were people who already had a scroll saw and skills from when that style of cutting was popular for architecture and cabinet-making. That would be mainly be in the Victorian era but continued up to about 1920. I think (but am not sure) that electric scroll saws were available but pricey by then but most of the puzzle-makers probably were using treadle machines. But I suspect a few inventive cutters may have modified their treadle machines by attaching a motor and a foot-powered speed controller (like the new-fangled electric sewing machines were beginning to have at that time.)
In fact, there are at least two puzzle-makers who still use old treadle scroll saws - Simon and Claudia Stocken (puzzleplex.co.uk) are the grandchildren of Enid Stocken, a renowned British cutter from the 1920s-'70s. The still make hand-cut jigsaw puzzles that feature their grandmother's old-school styles of cutting design and they make puzzles on old cast-iron treadle machines.