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 5th Avenue, New York based Perplexity brand. Mrs. Hayden Richardson claimed credit for bringing the puzzle craze from Boston to New York in early 1908. 
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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.