# Any jigsaw puzzle fans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634 "2022-03-24T14:59:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/101 "2024-01-06T15:11:33Z")
Wow that’s amazing! My puzzle board can sadly only accommodate about 2,000 pieces but I have a dream to have a whole puzzle table in the future to work on big ones like that. I enjoy the challenge of more pieces, and I don’t do it for speed, I just find it meditative. Right now I’m working on a holiday 1,000er that I’m not very enthusiastic about. I got it on sale for like $13 and I wanted something festive. But the colors don’t look as good in person. I love puzzles with bright or vivid colors. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/102 "2024-01-06T15:21:39Z")
My favorite puzzle pictures are photographs that combine natural and man-made elements, like the town in front of a mountain in @Biotop 's puzzle (though that’s maybe a bit too much mountain). Photographs generally mean detail at a scale much smaller than the pieces themselves, and natural and man-made elements mean different kinds of details that lend themselves to different techniques (like, a telephone line crossing an expanse of natural landscape gives you a curve of pieces across that section that you can put together, and use as a framework for the rest of the pieces in that section). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/103 "2024-01-06T20:30:08Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > My wife got a jigsaw puzzle with numbers on the back. I’d never seen that before. Of course a “lively” discussion broke out over whether this was ‘fair’ (assuming this is what they are for). > > Any thoughts about these numbers? They mostly seem to be on puzzles made in China with poor piece diversity - in other words, if you fit in a piece in a region of one color, like black, you have a good chance of being wrong. I had a Star Trek ripoff puzzle bought from a thrift shop with the numbers, and I used them for the section of space. Never would have finished it without lots of swearing without the numbers. Good puzzles don’t need them. If the puzzle is bad enough to be a pain, I’m all for using them now. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/104 "2024-01-06T20:33:49Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Wow that’s amazing! My puzzle board can sadly only accommodate about 2,000 pieces but I have a dream to have a whole puzzle table in the future to work on big ones like that. I enjoy the challenge of more pieces, and I don’t do it for speed, I just find it meditative. Here’s a tip I learned from my friend who runs a puzzle site. Go to a Dollar Store and buy solid sheets of white cardboard. Take them home and tape them together. That’s big enough for even my 5,000 piece puzzles. And cheap. No rails to keep pieces on the board, but a good solution. My father-in-law made me a folding puzzle board big enough for 2,000 piece puzzles, and I have a carboard one for 1500 pieces and fewer. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/105 "2024-01-15T02:20:45Z")
I haven’t done puzzles since I was a kid, but this thread inspired me to get one at the thrift store. My daughter and I did it in a few days. It was only 300 pieces. I just ordered another ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/106 "2024-01-15T13:00:03Z")
Currently working on this one … > **[https://preview.redd.it/znwqllkc01c71.jpg?width=2970&format=pjpg&auto=we...](https://preview.redd.it/znwqllkc01c71.jpg?width=2970&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a6ff9aecdd7d2d3a12c2abb34a8e4946e2bcab4)** It’s at my mum’s and is a family joint effort ! ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/107 "2024-01-15T15:16:21Z")
When I got that 2000 piece “Starry Night” puzzle a couple years ago, it was too big to fit on the folding table I usually do my puzzles on. So I bought a big sheet of foam-core board to lay across the folding table. I probably couldn’t get a 5000 piece puzzle to fit on it, but I’m not sure I’m ambitious enough to try something that big anyway. 2000 pieces is about my limit. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/108 "2024-01-15T15:51:34Z")
Does anyone else get a backache from spending too long bent over the puzzle? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/109 "2024-01-15T16:28:32Z")
I did until I started doing them on my bed. Me and the floor don’t get along so well. Man, this $12 puzzle I found (Holiday theme) turned out to be way harder than I anticipated. It has irregular pieces and a zillion different patterns. I want to buy more puzzles but I have like five sitting in my closet waiting to be completed. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/110 "2024-01-15T18:53:34Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Man, this $12 puzzle I found (Holiday theme) turned out to be way harder than I anticipated. It has irregular pieces and a zillion different patterns. My grandson gave me a Christmas Tree shaped puzzle for Christmas. Normally I can do a 500 piece puzzle in an afternoon, but I spent three days trying to put it together on the kitchen counter. It was _hard!_ Every piece was the same shape except for the irregular borders. I couldn’t do the border first like a rectangular puzzle, I just had to do small areas of the tree then try to fit them together and finally put the border around. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2024, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/111 "2024-07-27T19:35:48Z")
Bumping to report on an amazing puzzle site I found. [Pixels.com](https://pixels.com/shop/puzzles) has over 12 million available puzzles. From the discussion board, it appears it is a site where artists can load their work and have it sold in different formats - shower curtains, posters, mugs and jigsaw puzzles. I’d bet it is a kind of print on demand place. I got a puzzle of the Vasa (see the favorite museums thread) there. The puzzle was of very good quality. They are not cheap - $35 is the lowest price, with some up to $75. I think the creators can set the price - all the ones of Boris Vallejo art, say, are $75. And a pretty good search function. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/112 "2024-07-28T14:01:20Z")
Are the pieces all grid-cut? (Each piece a rectangle with knobs and holes, laid out in a grid-like patterns.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/113 "2024-07-28T14:03:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > I have seen some puzzles based on Escher’s lizards, or slightly morphed into turtles, where all of the non-edge pieces were the same shape, and hence interchangeable. One that I had was hot-air balloons, and doing the sky part was nearly impossible (there were enough color gradations to tell when it was wrong, but not where the right piece was). > > They were called Shmuzzle Puzzles. Here’s a page of them from EBay > [shmuzzle puzzle products for sale | eBay](https://www.ebay.com/b/shmuzzle-puzzle/bn_7024738066) > > I had a few of them like 30 years ago. I was recently talking with Ann Williams, who retired from being a professor at Bates college specializing in the history of jigsaw puzzles. She said that the makes of Shmuzzle Puzzles were ahead of their time. What they did would be fairly easy to do today, but at the time they had a great deal of difficulty getting the pieces cut accurately enough to truly be interchangeable. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/114 "2024-07-28T14:17:42Z")
There is a Kickstarter out for 1000 piece fantasy art puzzles, if anyone is interested. [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hitpointpress/scroungecraft-jigsaw-puzzles-series-2](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hitpointpress/scroungecraft-jigsaw-puzzles-series-2) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/115 "2024-07-28T14:51:40Z")
I’m going to do a 300 piecer shortly. Nice big pieces - should take an hour or so. Just a nice little pastime. Yesterday my daughter said she enjoys watching puzzle competitions on-line. Hmm. I think I’ll pass. She said Ravensburger creates new dies for each puzzle. Is that true? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/116 "2024-07-28T20:03:03Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Are the pieces all grid-cut? (Each piece a rectangle with knobs and holes, laid out in a grid-like patterns.) Yes, but in interesting patterns. Doing the fairly large sky portion was a pleasure. I assume that all their puzzles more or less have the same cut, but I’ve only done the one. The stock isn’t very thick, but thick enough. And you can move chunks of pieces around without any falling out, which is a plus for me. I’ve done some cheapo Chinese puzzles, and this one was much, much better. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/117 "2024-07-28T20:04:32Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I was recently talking with Ann Williams, who retired from being a professor at Bates college specializing in the history of jigsaw puzzles. She said that the makes of Shmuzzle Puzzles were ahead of their time. What they did would be fairly easy to do today, but at the time they had a great deal of difficulty getting the pieces cut accurately enough to truly be interchangeable. I remember some puzzle claiming to be laser-cut, and I thought it was those. I had some back when they were out. If I could get to my garage closet I could see if I still had one. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/118 "2024-07-28T20:06:02Z")
There are lots of laser cut puzzles now, but I’m pretty sure those were die cut. Computer-guided lasers weren’t a thing, yet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/119 "2024-07-28T20:07:47Z")
Nowadays, “laser cut” would probably mean that it was a laser actually doing the cutting. I think that it used to just mean that there was a laser somehow guiding a blade, though. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634/120 "2024-07-28T21:02:27Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > She said Ravensburger creates new dies for each puzzle. Is that true? I’ve only done one of theirs, but it was 5,000 pieces. At some point, I noticed a piece that fit in place, but the color wasn’t quite a match. With a little experimenting, the pieces next to it also matched. I’m pretty sure the cutter was like a rolling pin, rolling across the puzzle from left to right, but small enough that it rolled over three times. The result was a repeating pattern of identically-shaped pieces. Whether they create a new die for each puzzle, I can’t say. But in a certain way, the pieces are not unique. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-jigsaw-puzzle-fans/961634.md?page=7)