The BCD

We awoke on the Saturday in the UK to a continuation of the Indian summer we had been experiencing recently – bright skies and sunshine – the perfect lighting for a day of good puzzling. Having not been on the Flickr group myself in a while the big question was who was going to be first to post?

Puzzle photos soon started flowing. Some showing puzzles which were to be attempted over the weekend from Parker Pastimes, Jugglers and ‘What Ifs’. Some were finished puzzles from member collections that fitted the theme, from beautiful Brueghel’s, Cartoon classics, and Wasgij wonders. Our international members began to log on for the day, complete with photos of drinks and snacks to keep their spirits high. We were even treated to a quick cartoon drawing or two as a break from all the puzzle pieces. The best bit about these events is how eclectic member tastes are and how wonderfully the theme is interpreted – you can view all our puzzles on our Flickr group – ‘BCD Just Jigsaws’, please take a look.

The humour continued as we entered the afternoon Zoom Show and Tell session with a range of amusing puzzles, anecdotes, stories and musings. (See Post above). There was also the odd giggle as inevitably the technology bested us on occasion, with missing photos and screen share niggles.

Puzzling continued late into the night, but enthusiasm remained unabated and more puzzles were uploaded first thing Sunday morning. BCD members puzzled throughout the day with pictures of cats, cartoons and comic capers filling the photo stream. There was also a caption competition running for one puzzle – suggestions ranged from the witty to the down right risqué, but all raised a smile.

At 4pm members once again convened on Zoom for everyone to catch up, chat and share their latest puzzle adventures, projects and interests. It was wonderful to hear of local village puzzle groups, how family members had rediscovered jigsaw puzzles during lockdown and how our wonderful hobby had come to the aid of so many during the current COVID landscape.

It is comforting to think that although we should really have all been together, we have managed to make the best of the situation and our shared enjoyment of puzzles has ensured that we are close in one way or another. Who knows what will happen in the coming months, but one thing is certain…with jigsaws to hand I reckon as a group we will ride out this storm.

Our second online show and tell meeting was again enjoyed by over 30 members who ‘Zoom’ed in to join us from around the world. Alan’s puzzles were a Thelwell cartoon “Water Jump” and a Pears print “Impudent Hussies painted in 1902 by artist Mary Groves. David followed with another vintage Pears print, a 249 piece solid wood puzzle “Make Way, We’re Comin’ Through” and his second was the psychedelic “Mushroom Trippy Land Weed Sun Bong Fantasy”, Puzzlewood cut of a Mike Dubois image.
Deb first puzzle was “All about Ghosts”, a Stratford Puzzles, 300+ cardboard piece, 1930’s image of a grandfather reading a bed-time ghost story to his grandson but scaring himself more than the boy! “Light of Other Days”, was next, a 575 piece, colour line, push fit puzzle showing a group of boys throwing snowballs at a sentry in his box and finished with a 1926 Parker Pastime Puzzle Contest set comprising four individual boxes each housing a different puzzle.

Emma had just one, bright and colourful 100 piece Ravensburger What If? Puzzle No.2, “Garden Open Day”. Jackie was next with a lovely 321 piece Puzzlewood shaped, 3D enhanced puzzle of Owen Wood’s ‘Beautiful Pea-Green Boat’ illustration for Edward Lear’s “The Owl & The Pussycat”. Following this was another Wood illustration, one of three characters from Lear limericks, “Lady of Rye”, cut in a Figure-It-Out style by Le Colimacon. She finished with a Raphael Tuck, Zag Zaw 600 piece “John Gilpin Rides”.

Jeanne started with an old Par puzzle “High diddle diddle”, followed with a small interlocking puzzle of Dickens character Toby Weller from his “The Pickwick Papers” novel. Her third was an untitled US puzzle of a cartoon-like beach barbeque in the snow, and last “The Eavesdropper”, a 100 piece Victory Super-Cut puzzle showing another beach scene.

John followed with two offerings probably, by the same, unknown cutter. His first “The Spectator” a 330 piece push-fit puzzle sub-titled “The man who …. coughed?!”, and the second a similar styled “Elephant Polo”, showing four Indian gents wielding polo sticks atop an elephant and seeing off the opposition below them on their horses. Marie’s one puzzle was a Charles Crombie cartoon “Where shall I drop you?” A reasonable question from a cabbie but this being an aerial taxi, the passenger is wide-eyed, open mouthed & looking aghast, seemingly having taken the question literally!

Next was Robin’s puzzle “Say When, Sir” showing a butler showering both himself and his guest with champagne. Pete’s puzzles were: “The Fatalist”, a 100 piece showing Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous WW1 anti-hero “Old Bill; “A Game of Patience”; another small push fit puzzle of a Clarence Lawson Wood painting and “Tete de Clowne”, a bright 1000 piece portrait of a doleful looking clown painted in 1955 by Bernard Buffet, from Vera’s excellent Arte Moderne series.

Heather’s were all her own work. The first a rather rude snow sculpture built right outside the front door of the local Inland Revenue offices, from a John Witt Christmas card. Her other two puzzles both featured a cat as the main protagonist. “Life is Good” and “Busking in St.Petersburg” painted by Vladimir Rumyantsev, born in 1957 and a member of society of water colorists of St. Petersburg.

Tom concluded proceedings with another Thelwell image, “In Hot Pursuit”, waterjet cut by PG Puzzle showing Santa being given a lift by a typical Thelwell rider and steed, frantically chasing his runaway reindeer and sleigh. He rounded off with two Giles puzzles, “The Giant Snowball” and a special one based on the RNLI Christmas Card of Grandma and Co. decorating a tree at the Lifeboat station that Wentworth could never put this into production for copyright reasons.

A lot of the first half of the Summer 2020 issue was given over to accounts of our first ever Virtual Puzzling Weekend, organised to replace our planned June meeting that the pandemic prevented from taking place.  You can read more about that weekend in the two posts below.

The second half included another half dozen or so articles. Among these were two contrasting accounts of puzzles bought on eBay, the first a review accompanied by a detailed list of puzzles that sold for the highest prices over the last two years and the second illustrating a selection of wooden puzzles that went at bargain prices.

Other contributions described :puzzling during the lockdown in South Africa; puzzles on the theme “My Country” from our treasurer that he was not able to share at the June virtual Show & Tell; Flickr at the 2020 Jigsaw Mga-Marathon; a member’s favourite bus puzzles, the puzzle cutter A.Dinn; and finally a short piece entitled “Jigging as a Millenial” posing the question .. “Is jigsaw building about the process or the final piece for you?”

Our first ever virtual BCD Show & Tell was a great success. There were over 30 members on the call including participants from England, Scotland, Wales, USA, Netherlands, Germany and Sweden – a truly international assembly! About a dozen of us managed to successfully share and talk about our puzzles on the theme “My Country”.  See the Gallery page for photos of all the puzzles shown.

David A. kicked us off with three puzzles on the theme of the City of London followed by David P. showing “The Signing of The Magna Carta” and Enid Stocken’s “Launching of the S.S. Great Britain in July 1843 in Bristol dock”. Heather followed with four of her own puzzles, including a 317 piece 3D puzzle view of “Snowdon”, a 300 piece “Flowers Map” of Great Britain and a busy colourful, “Lavenham Morris” showing a colourful group of Morris dancers with locals hanging out of their windows enjoying the show. She finished with a 630 piece , layered 3D puzzle “Contoured Wales”. Ian shared a Beraton country cottage scene, a lovely 358 piece Zig Zag puzzle, “The Nations Jewels”, a beautiful personification of Britannia with her children painted by Eva Hollyer and a 400 piece Victory Gold Box Artistic of “Trafalgar Square”.

Jeanne started with a puzzle of her home location, “New Railroad & County Map of New England”, followed by two more American puzzles, a 650 piece Par puzzle of a Norman Rockwell image, “Boss of The Road” and  “Spring Blossoms”, a lovely push fit cut by Isabel Ayer, sold in Boston, Massachusetts, under her Picture Puzzle Exchange brand.

John’s first puzzle was one of the more collectable Chad Valley GWR puzzles, “Locos in the Making”, and his second a tremendous old 1920s, 1000 piece line cut, push-fit and challenging puzzle, “Dutch Courage”. Penny showed just one puzzle, a lovely Victory artistic Gold Box, 1000 piece “Danish Invaders (Historical)”.

Tom began with the oldest puzzle in his collection, John Wallis’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Made in 1790 and featured on Plate 13, pages 22/23 of Linda Hannas’s “The English Jigsaw Puzzle 1760 to 1890”. Wout shared four puzzles, all from the Netherlands including “Sneeuw-landschap” (Snow landscape), probably cut in the 1920s, into 179 plywood pieces, with a very interesting push fit, angular cut, the entire puzzle having only two continuous cut lines.

Emma shared her collection of National Trust (NT) mini-Wentworth 40-piece puzzles, and Jackie started with another Wentworth, a 500 piece, “Pendle in May. She continued with a 1100 piece panoramic photo of “Glen Affric and the Victory Gold Box Super Cut, 1000pc “Envoy to the Mogul. Robin showed two very interesting Victorian puzzles bought blind from an auction in Yorkshire, a stunning 1850 “Railway Scenes” and an equally fascinating “Scenes in India”, made by John Betts around the middle of C19th.
Bibbi had a 300 piece JLE-Puzzle from her native Sweden ,“Frilufstliv vid stranden” (Outdoor life by the Beach), and Pete rounded off with John Wallis’s 1798 puzzle “England Dissected on the Best Principles for Teaching Geography, one of four 340 piece cardboard puzzles of The Beatles made in the mid-1960s by Brian Epstein’s NEMS and last but not least a small 150 piece old amateur cut puzzle “Idle Moments” showing a typical rural English scene.

Back in February, just before the lockdown, about 60 of our members gathered at a hotel in Peterborough to take part in a full weekend of puzzling activity, and a very enjoyable time was had by all! Most of the time was spent assembling a wide variety of puzzles, most with the common theme of the weekend which was “Village and Rural Life”.

This was interspersed with talks on “Dunlop Chad Valley Puzzles”, ”Jigsaw Puzzle Colouring and Printing” and “Cutting 3D Puzzles the GrandpaTJ Way” along with our usual Show & Tell session.

Themed “Village and Rural Life” puzzles were shared by almost a dozen members, among them were puzzles made by Victory, Wentworth, U-Nit, Salmon and Vera and cutters Edith Stocken, Meredith Worsfold Sarah White and Richard Sawbridge.

Participants were also able to enjoy the lovely hotel grounds, nearby park and lake and the hotel’s pool and spa facilities. We are already looking forward and hoping that we will be able to safely reconvene for another great puzzling weekend early next year.

The 24 page 35^th anniversary issue of Jigsaw Pieces was packed full of news and reports from our very successful February house party – see next post for more on that.

Other articles in the issue included: a couple from our President Tom, one, titled “President’s Prattle” to rival the usual “Chairman’s Chatter” entry, referencing puzzling life under lockdown; a piece on Peacock puzzles and boxes from Barrie; an account of his receiving the Knighthood of the Order of Orange Nassau from the King of the Netherlands by our very own Geert Bekkering and an update on the recent developments and improvements made to this site, including a promotion for the new Gallery page that highlights the wonderful photos our photographer takes of the puzzles on show at our meetings.

The Spring issue of Jigsaw Pieces featured on its front page the top-selling Maids of Kent “Alice – The Mock Turtle’s Story” puzzle from the auction held at the Lingfield meeting in November. More about the meeting and the auction was to be found inside, including a detailed list of all the puzzles auctioned with the prices they fetched. See the post below for more details more on the meeting.

There was still room for a few more articles, though. The biggest of these, contributed by Kirsten and titled “Password “Eagles-palette”, discussed the less well known presence of Raphael Tuck & Sons in Berlin in the early part of the last century. They operated there from 1904 until liquidation in 1915, manufacturing and selling puzzles with slightly different cuts from those normally associated with Tuck. From 1915 until 1935 another publishing company took over their premises but continued to produce similar products – art prints and puzzles – using a very closely associated logo.

John wrote about his childhood in the coal mining area of the Midlands and the beginnings of his collections of Good Companion, Mammoth and Lumar puzzles, including a wants list of those he still needs to complete them. Brian described his eventually successful attack on a 4,000 piece Christmas present, Anne posed a query about Bournemouth cutter Desmond Everdale-Hawks and Pete urged any jigsaw sellers to help find new club members by including BCD flyers with the puzzles they send out to their buyers.

Rosemary and John Schofield hosted our last meeting, way back in November, and a very eventful meeting it was! The theme was “Children at Play” and again a great variety of interesting themed puzzles were in evidence, both being assembled during the day and shared in the afternoon’s Show and Tell session. Also on show were about 30 extremely high quality puzzles, more than half of which were large Holtzappfels, selected from the collection of the late Dave Cooper, for auction during the meeting. Our president Tom, who also happens to be a trained auctioneer, ran the proceedings and all the puzzles sold, many for surprisingly large amounts, allowing quite a few attendees to go home very pleased with their purchases but more than a little lighter in their pockets! Photos of just a few of these auctioned puzzles can be seen in the “Jigsaw Pieces Issue 135” post above.

Rosemary started the Show & Tell with her fully restored, antique puzzle cut from a printed Trades poster by Brogden, uniquely featuring an illustration of a puzzle (“Map”) dissector, in its bottom right corner. Her second offering was “Time To Play, a 1930s outline cut puzzle made for Gamble’s Jig-saw Puzzle Club, Yarm in Cleveland. John showed an attractively cut, 520 piece, push-fit puzzle “Japanese Children at Play” and a 420 piece Tuck’s Zag Zaw “Little Fisher Maids”. Lynne’s puzzles included a Jacob & Co advertising puzzle and a heavily restored 108 piece “Playing Band”, a puzzle cut and sold by Margaret H. Richardson under her 5^th Avenue, New York based Perplexity brand. Mrs. Hayden Richardson claimed credit for bringing the puzzle craze from Boston to New York in early 1908. .
Jackie shared two 250 piece brightly coloured Wentworth’s: a wavy topped “Christmas Enthusiasm” by artist Paula Nightingale, showing children playing by a river in the snow and an Edwardian childhood picture painted by Judy Talacko, called “Seaside Scherzando” featuring a variety of marine whimsies.

Also on show were puzzles from Waddington’s, Parker Brothers, Zig Zag ,“The Expert, Holtazpffel, The Great Puzzle Craze, HS Puzzles, the Barfoots and the interestingly named ‘“Ward-Off Hysteria” Jigsawed Puzzle’ !

See Gallery page for more photos of the puzzles shared at this meeting.

Thanks to Rosie and John for providing such a lovely location for the meeting, along with regular refreshments throughout the day.

I’m pleased to report that the Gallery of photographs of puzzles shown at recent meeting is now back . There are a wide variety of puzzles to see there now and more will be added in the coming months, so please take a look.