Newsletter number 120 arrived in June with a host of interesting articles and photographs including reports of the March meeting/AGM at Leverstock (see previous post).
David’s Part 5 of his “Wanderings of the Jigasaurus” series focused on the quite rare “Bildajig” range of 3D jigsaw puzzle models, manufactured by Scottish Toys Ltd of Glasgow in the 1930’s. He had thought they comprised a series of 3 black-hulled models of a tug boat, a cargo liner and a passenger, each being made up of a series of layers that stack on top of each other, each of which is its own mini-jigsaw puzzle. Add in wooden funnels and masts and metal ventilators and you have a fine model of a sea-going vessel! He has now discovered that there’s a fourth model in the series, having recently acquired a white-hulled variation of the passenger liner. In a second article, David followed up on Tom’s piece in the last issue on collecting as a hobby and encouraged other members to do likewise. Brian also added an account of his own highly developed “collecting gene”.
Jackie Armstrong contributed two articles, one on “Big Jigsaws” and the second in response to the photo of a puzzle of “John Gilpin’s Ride to Where” in the last issue. John Hyde too responded to this with details and photos of his own John Gilpin puzzle and his original copy of Randolph Caldecott’s 1878 “Picture Book” that featured the rhyming story of John Gilpin’s wedding anniversary ride to The Bell Inn at Edmonton.
Barrie wrote about another extremely rare puzzle he was recently pleased to acquire, “Exodus of Israel from Egypt” by E.J.Peacock who opened the Peacock firm in 1853 but did not stick around too long. Consequently, to the best of Barrie’s knowledge only 3 other puzzles made by him exist in the world!
Finally, on a lighter note, from Martin Norgate, came “Jigsaws are the stuff of Life” – in the form of ice cubes, ginger biscuits and a birthday cake depicting (very roughly) a theological map of the world from Medieval times!