The BCD

A great picture of Holtzapffel’s wonderful “Chicken Licken” puzzle featured on the front cover of Issue 134 and the magazine duly contained quite a lot of content about the September bird-themed Alton meeting (see previous post for more details of that meeting). Additional related content was provided by the editor who included a nicely illustrated and informative article about the bird puzzles of J.Salmon.

Maria contributed a really interesting couple of pages about “The Geographic Educator”, sold with the slogan ‘You can “sell the world” with this wonderful, entertaining, instructive and fascinating puzzle’. The puzzle in question was a globe, dissected into seven sections, six of which represented a continent and were each circular puzzles in themselves, with tiny  pieces representing countries or regions. The whole lot was made of Bakelite and sold, in 1927, for $7.50, equivalent to £100 today!

Other articles included a request for help in identifying two missing AVN Jones South African Series puzzles; “Harry Eliott unmasked” – about the French “gentleman illustrateur normand” who painted in a style very similar to Cecil Aldin but under the pseudonym Harry Eliott; and a tribute to the late Martin Norgate in form of an article written by Alan about “Two Remarkable Puzzles” , among the several that Martin made and left to BCD members to share and enjoy, these being the circularly titled “Doing a Jigsaw” and the baffling “A Piece of Jarlsberg” both beautifully illustrating Martin’s whimsical and challenging approach to cutting puzzles.

Thanks to Peter and Margaret Bell for hosting a successful September meeting in Alton, where the theme was “Birds”. Over 30 attendees enjoyed the opportunity to indulge in a day’s puzzling among like-minded friends, old and new. The day was enhanced for some by a classic car display not far away in town.

As always, the day produced a fine selection of puzzles from a variety of manufacturers with quite a preponderance of Wentworth puzzles being put together and more included in the Show & Tell session. Tom showed two of the fifteen he owns from their popular series based on Thorburn’s 1915 four volumes of British Birds, as well as a lovely Sara White “Garden birds”, and Alan showed another two more unusual Wentworths sold by The Scottish Seabird Centre. Lynne showed an Aunt Eva cut “Seashore with Gulls” as well as, for me the puzzle of the day, Holtzapffel’s “Chicken Licken” that graced the front cover of the subsequent issue of Jigsaw Pieces (See next post above).

Jackie brought along another fine Liberty puzzle, the 332 piece “Carolina Parakeets”, looking quite challenging featuring non-linear edges and many drop outs. John showed what he considered the most well know of Holtzapffel’s puzzles, “BlueBird” as well as another famous bird, “Jemima Puddleduck” produced by Frederick Warne.

Other puzzles enjoyed by the assembled audience came from Connoisseur, Delta, Vera, Salmon, Tuck, Waddington’s, a very old mid-Victorian Darton & Clark, three from the British Jigsaw Puzzle Library, two of these cut by Erics Bond and Pedley respectively and, finally, one cut by host Peter Bell himself!  A good time was had by all.

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

The first half of this 20 page issue included the usual Chairman’s Chatter and note from the Editor and several articles about the previous Tintern meeting  (see previous post), while the second half covered quite a diverse range of jigsaw-related topics, the whole lot liberally illustrated with good quality photographs.

John Hyde contributed two articles, one on a jigsaw disaster – an intricately cut, whimsy laden puzzle that rather disappointingly turned out to have a dozen missing pieces and another, following up on a couple of recent “then and now” articles, on jigsaw image locations re-visited.

Jackie reported on the puzzling achievements of a new BCD member who, along with her team, had completed 242 puzzles comprising over 170,000 pieces in total in 2019 to date.

Julia provided an account of her visit to this year’s Newmarket Jigsaw Festival and Competition, Steve revisited some of the puzzles of A.V.N.Jones, in a follow-up to Alan’s article in a issue and Dave wrote an interesting piece entitled “10 ways to choose Jigsaw”.

Finally, the editor included an interesting email dialog between jigsaw authority Anne Williams and Barrie Hudson-Peacock on Peacock Block Puzzles and other educational items they produced.

“Rivers, canals and lakes” was the fitting theme for the June meeting, taking place as it did in Tintern on the river Wye in full flow after the huge amount of rain that had fallen in the previous week. Nearby landslides and road closures necessitated a rather circuitous route in for many and some members, very sadly, failed to make it at all!  Those that did, enjoyed a very pleasant day’s puzzling with a lovely view of Tintern Abbey, located just a few hundred yards away, and the sun even came out later in the day.

Almost a dozen members contributed to the Show & Tell session sharing a wide range of beautiful and interesting puzzles. Among these were a high quality Liberty puzzle “On the Ngare Ndare River’, a melee of African animals, by artist Alex Beard Ngare Ndare and a rare early C20^th Peacock Great Society Craze Puzzla 400 piece puzzle of “Bolton Abbey and River Wharfe”  by R.F.McIntyre with cattle enjoying themselves in the river in the foreground, both part of Jackie’s collection. Phil followed Jackie with a Chad Valley puzzle from their Dunlop series. Titled “Barge Scene” it is one of the rarest in the thirteen puzzle series they produced in 1937-38. Martin had just one puzzle to share, a 750 piece Raphael Tuck of the little known “Loch Whin” in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, painted by Walter Severn. The puzzle was initialled “JVB Dec 25-27^th, 1915” with further notes on the underside of the box, dated June 1917, “1 piece missing” and “Considerable amount of sky”!

Sue, at her first BCD meeting, shared one of the 35 puzzles she owns cut by Chris Carrick. Branded “Almost Abstract”, “Waterfalls” is a 317 piece 5 ply puzzle with amazing cuts, full of whimsies and lovely tactile pieces. Lynne showed a challenging looking 300 piece Martin Noorgate puzzle of Stanley Spencer’s beach scene “Southwold” and “Waiting for The Ferry” from an unknown manufacturer’s “Wessex Series” of puzzles.

Other puzzle manufacturers on show included Salmon, Vera, Marvel and F.Green. The puzzle made by the latter being a C19th “The Lord Mayor’s Show By The Water” depicting the grand barge spectacular that ran from its inception in the C15th up to 1856 when the barges used were sold off to Oxford colleges, but whose design was the inspiration for the Royal Barge commissioned for the Queen’s 2012 Diamond Jubilee.

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

Thanks to Sally who hosted the meeting and also provided a much-appreciated early-evening meal for those members who wanted to prolong the day’s enjoyment.

The Spring newsletter was a real treat, featuring a lovely full colour cover of a Sara White puzzle, “Waterworld”, assembled at the Peterborough House Party, colour photographs on nearly every one of its 24 pages and a superior quality paper to boot! A new production process has meant editor Brian has changed the layout to intersperse the photos with the text of corresponding articles rather than them being collected together on photo-only pages, resulting, in my opinion, in a much more appealing and rewarding read. And he has given it a new title,”Jigsaw Pieces”.

As usual, several articles covered the previous quarterly meeting, discussed in the News post below, but the majority of the magazine was devoted to proceedings at February’s House Party that once again was greatly enjoyed by all. So much so that it might become an annual not a bi-annual event and will certainly be taking place again next February for starters.

Several attendees’ related personal accounts of the weekend, speakers Tom, Alan and Genest provided articles for readers sharing the content of their respective presentations: “Chad Valley’s Cardboard Puzzles”; “A.V.N. Jones: South African and Australian Series Puzzles” and “Psychology and Puzzles!”. To complement that was a lengthy article on the Show and Tell, themed “All Around The World” which yielded a great variety and quality of jigsaws for all to enjoy seeing and hearing about.

The balance of the issue comprised a page put together from their website by editor Brian to celebrate Gibsons 2019 centenary year, short articles by Terry on a puzzling moment he experienced recently , a suggestion from John for a project on the history of Jigsaw Puzzle clubs , listing a dozen he is aware of, an article on various puzzles of the J. Young Hunter painting “Vanity Fair” from Jackie and, finally, a piece by Brian on Waddington’s Jig-maps.

Perhaps because it came so soon after the very successful House Party at Peterborough, but not helped by the weather either, attendance at the Spring meeting and AGM was much lower than usual with only about 20 members making their way to Harold Hill, though one, Maria, came all the way from Germany just to make the meeting and meet fellow puzzlers!

Fittingly, the Show & Tell theme was “Spring”. Alan’s Chad Valley 150 piece GWR “Springtime in Devon – Fingle Bridge” kicked off the session, to be followed by his 1915 Pears print “A Military Wedding” cut by Genest Desfosses and finally one cut by Aunt Eva, “Joi de Vivre in Hawaii”. Jan shared “Spring Bluebells” by The Kwiz Puzzle and then Liz showed a Cecil Aldin hen and chicks puzzle and a small cardboard advertising puzzle for Liverine bird food.

Tom’s two contributions were a Master Craftsman Gold Box puzzle, “Horses Ploughing”, with a cut very similar to that of Optimago puzzles and, stretching the theme a little, one of his own cuts of a panther about to spring! David finished the session with a Ponda puzzle “Bend in The River” of Dutch tulip fields, a G.P puzzle of a bird in a gorse bush and an Eric Pedley cut circular puzzle “Spring Flowers”. Maria then ended the session, telling the assembly about her collection of antique world maps and showing an 1880’s Ravensburger six cardboard maps in a single box, a double sided puzzle with a map on one side and a checkers game on the other and an Atlas set of maps enclosed in a book with a topically fitting absent British Isles piece (not) in a puzzle map of Europe!

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

Ten members contributed articles to February’s newsletter. Several related accounts of the previous quarterly meeting – see News post below – but others covered a diverse range of jigsaw-related topics.

Coincidentally, Dave, John and Helen all wrote about their early puzzle collecting days, with both Dave and John relating how little one had to pay when they started their collections, for what are now highly collectable puzzles. Dave went on to point out how the Internet has transformed the hobby in the best way possible, by making both acquiring and disposing of puzzles much easier.

Jackie provided several articles: one on Victory Gold Box prices; another about a German hosted winter jigsaw mega-marathon where contestants aim to assemble as many jigsaw pieces as possible in a 72 hour period; a third on the Flickr Jigsaw Community and a fourth on recent eBay puzzle sales.

John Waller wrote about an interesting puzzle variation – “An Interchange Puzzle” containing a murder mystery story accompanied by a 180 piece puzzle of the murder scene, together with an additional 60 piece puzzle to make and lay over part of the original, to reveal the murderer! Julia shared her passion for picture puzzle postcards with a host of varied examples and Brian followed up Tom’s previous “Then and Now” article with his own comparison of pictures painted by A. R. Quinton and used for puzzles in the 1920’s and 30’s with the same scenes now.

Finally, Alan published a list of the first 80 BCD newsletters, dated from Dec 1985 to May 2006, to accompany his report of having successfully digitally archived them all and announcing their availability for sale, either as individually printed newsletters or a single CD containing all 80 as pdf files.

A good turnout of around 30 members enjoyed a lovely bright hall and a steady supply of tea, coffee, cakes and biscuits to accompany an interesting day’s puzzling and enjoy “The Poppy (1918) and Wild Flowers” themed Show and Tell session. As our chairman pointed out in his account of the meeting, it was also good to see quite a few BCD founder members among the attendees, just a few short miles from where The BCD was launched.

David kicked off the Show and Tell session with one miniature and one larger wooden puzzle, of the same image “Never Forget 1914-18”, cut by Dave Evans, ex-Victory cutter and cutter of the Guinness World Record largest wooden jigsaw – a 40,000 piece puzzle created for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. He followed this with a small wooden puzzle made by A.H.Dunn of Scotland featuring WW1 leaders Kitchener, French and Jellico and a third one, a puzzle club jigsaw first done by HR The Queen, cut by Czech cutter, Hela, celebrating the RAF, originally formed in 1918.

Jackie’s contributions included a push fit puzzle of bluebells in a birch wood near a lake, cut in plywood in the 1930’s and a 500 piece Wentworth puzzle “First World War Centenary” featuring a collection of WW1 posters against a backdrop of a poppy and daisy meadow. Helen, our host for the day, shared two puzzles, Wentworth’s “Tower of London Remembrance” showing the stream of ceramic poppies pouring out of the tower, and a second of Spring Flowers and Poole Pottery. She had also brought along three WW1 artifacts including, most memorably, a rather surprisingly medieval looking leather and chain mail mask that her father-in-law was given to wear to protect his face from the pieces of metal that flew off the inside his tank when it was hit.

Margaret showed a cardboard Flower Fairies jigsaw and a parish-owned JR cardboard puzzle “Hedgerow Flowers”. Peter brought along another flower puzzle, a wooden, beautifully cut by Swiss company Penelope who employed disabled people among their cutters. Tom started with a Chad Valley “The Bluebell Valley” and followed it with a Meredith Worsfold calendar puzzle. John shared a doubly appropriately themed, lovely large wooden puzzle, “Friends”. It showed a beautiful young lady walking her dog and holding a garland of wild flowers with more wild flowers in the foreground. He surmised that this image was based on “Diana of the Uplands”, the famous painting by Charles Wellington Furse. The woman who modeled for this latter painting started the 1^st women’s nursing brigade to go out to Flanders in WW1. Sally started with Briony’s Victory flower puzzle and then talked about Lord Roberts workshops for disabled soldiers, expanded and named after him following his death while visiting troops in France, in 1914.  In 1922 the newly formed British Legion linked up with the workshops who, as well as a variety of other goods, made lots of puzzles and wooden toys thereafter. She had brought along three examples of the puzzles they made in the 1920s and 30s.

Pete finished the session with two wooden puzzles from 1918. The first a small homemade puzzle cut from the side of a Fannings packing case titled ”Peace”, showing the celebrations as the soldiers returned home. The second a beautifully cut push fit “Belgians Returning”, from a painting by American artist Frank Schoonover, who travelled to Europe in 1918/19 to illustrate American forces in the war, showing Belgian civilians returning home with all their possessions under the watchful eyes of both American and local troops.  Unfortunately, Martin had, during the day, completed two Bystander Bruce Bairnsfather WW1 “Old Bill” puzzles titled “The Thirst for Reprisals” and “The Professional Instinct Again”, cut for Frederick Warne by The Graphic Gallery, but didn’t get the call to share them! Thanks to Helen for another memorable meeting and to all those members who kindly contributed cakes and biscuits.

The 16 page Winter BCD Newsletter as usual included a collection of interesting articles, some accompanied by colour photos, on top of the usual notes from our chairman and editor and summaries of the last quarterly meeting in Harborne.
Our editor himself contributed a further article on his “chosen subject”, Salmon puzzles – this time covering their post-war output, as well as an update, including several member’s contributions, on ways to help dispose of member’s collections.

On the practical side, Puzzlewood cutter Heather wrote a piece about how she goes about her craft and Nicki added a piece on a relatively easy (as long as you are computer literate!) way to replace lost pieces of solid colour using MS Word’s colour spectrum.

Regular contributor Jackie’s article was titled “Same Image – Many Cutters” discussing, among other things, how different cutter treat the same image. Tom’s “The Changing Scenes of Life” included references and photos of scenes depicted in vintage puzzles, re-visited and photographed years later to illustrate how the landscape had changed, or not, as the case may be! Peter Bell wrote an account of the highly successful recent annual Alton jigsaw festival that raised over £5,000!

September saw us meeting at a rather special location, Harborne, just 500 yards from where, having started as a stationers in the 19^th century, Chad Valley started producing toys, games and puzzles in the early 1900’s and continued successfully for more than half a century. Appropriately, as well as the usual Show & Tell jigsaw puzzle session, host Phil Stokes also treated us to a look at some of his other other Chad Valley toys, games and puzzle collection – see pictures in post above and details below for more on this.

Among the highlights of the “Film and Theatre” Show & Tell session were three impressive Holtzapffel Figure=It=Out puzzles. David shared a 120 piece “Falstaff” he had acquired in an unmarked box, John had brought “Bo Peep”, from a London panto poster and Pete showed “The Girl From Ciro’s”, from a poster from a show performed at The Garrick in London in 1916.

Other puzzles shared by attendees included Gillian’s box set of 6 puzzles published by the Dutch Van Leer & Co showing monkeys dressed in court dress, titled “Theatre des Animaux Savant” (Theatre of Knowing Animals), Lynne’s AVM & Co “Mrs Jarley of the Travelling Waxworks”, a character from Dicken’s novel “The Old Curiosity Shop” and Jackie’s impressive Puzzlewood, “Much Ado About Nothing At The Globe” expertly cut by Heather Prydderch.

John also showed one of his favourites, the 1920s push fit of Renoir’s “La Loge”, now in the The Courtauld Gallery in London, but included in the first ever exhibition of Impressionist art in 1874 that established Renoir as an Impressionist artist. The picture depicts a couple in a box at the opera – the place to be seen on the Paris social scene of the times – the woman in the picture being a famous Parisienne model.

Heather followed John with a great puzzle of “Harry Potter’s Cupboard”, taken from the new series of illustrated editions by Jim Kay and then Brownen showed one of Portmeirion in relief – fitting the session’s theme through its connection with the cult TV program, “The Prisoner”

Host Phil’s three puzzles included a 300 piece theatre-related puzzle, “Twelfth Night”, one of only three Chad Valley Shakespearean scene puzzles and Pete ended the session with “West End Scandals”, also from a show at The Garrick in the 1930s and “Le Clownesse”, a 1000 piece Vera Arte Moderne puzzle of the beautifully coloured Toulouse-Lautrec 1895 painting of a female clown called Cha-U-Khao.

Phil’s started his additional Chad Valley chat with a nice collection of their promotional dexterity and other puzzles, produced for companies such as Oxo, Birds Eye, The Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch. He followed this with a lovely set of late 1930’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarf dolls, a 1935 “ Three Little Pigs” jigsaw set, and then a Pinocchio race game dated around 1940 . He closed with a 1950 board game designed by Emile Littler, a renowned theatrical impresario, with previous connections with Chad Valley related to pantomime dolls two of which Phil showed us – ‘FRIDAY’ from the 1938 ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘JACK’ from the pantomime ‘Jack and Jill’. Thanks to Phil and Jean for hosting what turned out to be a most pleasant and interesting day in Harborne.