When was puzzle invented

As you can imagine, the arrival of the Great Depression meant that people no longer had the disposable income to buy the more expensive wooden jigsaws, but still needed some entertainment to get them through the hard times. This is where the sales of cardboard puzzles really took off — they were cheaper and more shareable. Puzzles were suddenly much cheaper with the development of the die-cutting technique, which works like a giant cookie cutter, allowing the mass-production of cardboard puzzles.

The cheaper price of production meant that many brands used jigsaw puzzles as a form of advertising, knowing they would have a captive audience while whole families stared at the image for hours on end as they put the pieces together. This still goes on today, with pictures of random snacks, cars and other stuff being pasted onto puzzles. The popularity of jigsaw puzzles has risen and fallen over the years, with another major spike in sales caused by the coronavirus pandemic in Jigsaw puzzles were already enjoying a bit of a renaissance before lockdowns forced millions to seek fun activities to do at home, and sales continued to remain high as restrictions lifted.

In recent years, clever innovations have made puzzling a lot more fun, including the arrival of gradient puzzles , crowdsourced designs , and the ability to print just a single personal photo to create a custom puzzle — a concept that would have been unimaginable to the early pioneers of puzzling.

The jigsaw puzzle has become so familiar to use that it has become a shortcut for anything that we find confusing or challenging — just check out these horrible puzzle stock photos for an idea of what we mean! So how did the humble jigsaw come about. If you love a good jigsaw puzzle then you might be interested to know that the man credited with creating the first jigsaw puzzle was John Spilsbury in around A mapmaker and engraver he printed maps onto wood and cut them into pieces.

However, they weren't called jigsaw puzzles straight away, instead, they were called dissected maps. These maps were cut along country lines and became a popular teaching tool for children. You can find a great range of puzzles depicting different parts of the world.

But this does seem to be the generally agreed upon consensus. Although how they are made today has changed quite a bit. Still expensive to produce they were mostly an upper-class pursuit. But over time improved manufacturing methods and the introduction of cardboard as a material instead of wood made them more affordable and thus available to the masses. Jigsaws saw a huge rise in popularity in the US during the depression of the 's.

They became an inexpensive form of escape and weekly puzzles were sold in newsagents across the country. Englishman John Spilsbury, a London engraver and mapmaker, invented the jigsaw puzzle in The first jigsaw puzzle was a map of the world. Spilsbury attached a map to a piece of wood and then cut out each country.

Teachers used Spilsbury's puzzles to teach geography. Students learned their geography lessons by putting the world maps back together. With the invention of the first fret treadle saw in , the ability to create machine-aided curved lines was at hand. This tool, which operated with foot pedals like a sewing machine, was perfect for the creation of puzzles.

Eventually, the fret or scroll saw came to also be known as the jigsaw. By , jigsaw puzzles were being machine crafted, and although cardboard puzzles entered the market, wood jigsaw puzzles remained the bigger seller. Mass production of jigsaw puzzles began in the 20th century with the advent of die-cut machines. In this process sharp, metal dies for each puzzle were created and, operating like print-making stencils, were pressed down on sheets of cardboard or softwoods to cut the sheet into pieces.

This invention coincided with the golden age of jigsaws of the s. Companies on both sides of the Atlantic churned out a variety of puzzles with pictures depicting everything from domestic scenes to railroad trains. It would have been considered cheating if the puzzler had used one as reference before this time. Jigsaw puzzles were generally still made of wood right up until the outbreak of war in It was around the start of WW2, with plywood being in very short supply, did jigsaw puzzles start to be made out of cardboard.

However initially the cardboard used was of very poor quality. But it did make puzzles even cheaper and could continue to be enjoyed throughout this period. Wentworth Wooden Puzzles continue to make wooden jigsaw puzzles and with the introduction of very high quality and accurate lasers, we can create even more intricate and difficult cut patterns and the most exquisite whimsy shapes.

They therefore continue to be an engaging and enjoyable puzzling experience, perfectly combining traditional pastimes with modern laser cutting technology. Request a Catalogue. Sign up to our Newsletters. For offers, new product information and more.