I Can’t Sleep - Jigsaw Puzzles | Can’t Sleep? Piece Together Their History

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Jigsaw puzzles have been challenging patient minds for centuries. This episode explores how the first puzzles were created, how they developed from educational tools into popular entertainment, and how advances in printing and manufacturing changed the way puzzles were made. Along the way, you’ll hear about wooden puzzles, cardboard pieces, puzzle design, and the enduring appeal of fitting everything into just the right place. It’s steady and consistent, with no whispering and no sudden changes, just enough to give your mind something to follow as you wind down. Happy sleeping! Read with permission from Jigsaw puzzle, Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_puzzle), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. — Ad-free episodes: ⁠icantsleep.supportingcast.fm⁠Have a topic in mind? ⁠Request a topic⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Going on vacation? We're here for it. With kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that. Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2%

and your dinner is whatever is open. Yeah, here for that too. Enterprise. We're here for it. You gotta try breakfast. Better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee, starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W. I'm participating in W locations in Ontario. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast, where I help you drift off one fact at a time.

I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. In today's episode is about jigsaw puzzles. Going on vacation? We're here for it. With kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that. Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed,

your phone's at 2% and your dinner is weather is open? Yeah, here for that, dude. Enterprise, we're here for it. You gotta try breakfast, I-A-A-W. And what better way than with a delicious pre-organic coffee, starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st? You gotta try breakfast. At participating A&W locations in Ontario.

A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking, and mosaic pieces. Typically, each puzzle piece contains a portion of a picture, which is completed by solving the puzzle. In the 18th century, jigsaw puzzles were created by painting a picture on a flat rectangular piece of wood, then cutting it into small pieces. The name jigsaw derives from the tools used to cut the images into pieces,

variably identified as jigsaws, fret saws, and scrollsaws. John Spillsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, is credited with the commercializing jigsaw puzzles around 1760. His design took world maps and cut out the individual nations in order for them to be reassembled by students as a geographical teaching aid. They are now made primarily of interlocking cardboard pieces, incorporating a variety of images and artwork. Jigsaw puzzles have been used in research studies, examining cognitive abilities, such as mental rotation, visual spatial ability, and young children.

Typical images on jigsaw puzzles include scenes from nature, buildings, and repetitive designs. Castles and mountains are among traditional subjects, but any picture can be used. Artisan puzzle makers and companies using technologies for one-off and small print-run puzzles utilize a wide range of subject matter, including optical illusions, unusual art, and personal photographs. In addition to traditional flat two-dimensional puzzles, three-dimensional puzzles have entered large-scale production, including spherical puzzles and architectural recreations. A range of jigsaw puzzle accessories,

including boards, cases, frames, and roll-up mats, have become available to assist jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts. While most assembled puzzles are disciplined puzzles are dissoned, assembled for reuse. They can also be attached to a backing with adhesive and displayed as art. Competitive jigsaw puzzling has grown in popularity in the 21st century, with both regional and national competitions held in many countries, and annual world jigsaw puzzle championships held from 2019. John Spillsbury is believed to produce the first jigsaw puzzle around 1760, using a marketry saw. Jean-Marie Le Prins de Beaumont, French author and childhood educator,

have been using dissected maps or wooden maps in her teaching from as early as 1759. Early puzzles, known as dissections, were produced by mounting maps on sheets of hardwood and cutting along national boundaries, creating a puzzle useful for teaching geography. Royal governess, Lady Charlotte Finch, used such dissected maps

to teach the children of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Cardboard jigsaw puzzles appeared in the late 1800s, but were slow to replace wooden ones because manufacturers felt the cardboard puzzles would be perceived as low quality, and because profit margins on wooden jigsaws were larger. The name jigsaw came to be associated with the puzzle around 1880, when fred saws became the tool of choice for cutting the shapes. along with fred saws, jigsaws and scroll saws have also been noted as tools used to cut jigsaw puzzles into pieces.

The term jigsaw puzzle dates back to 1906. Jigsaw puzzles first became a craze among adults in the United States, from 1907 to 1910, and a year or two later in Europe. These puzzles were typically made from solid wood, and were often non-interlocking, making them very challenging. Adding to the challenge, there was usually no image on the box. Puzzle historian Anne Williams attributes the 1907 to 1910 puzzle craze to a mix of factors, a poor U.S. economy in 1907, increased participation of middle and upper class women in arts and craft sector,

activities like puzzle making, and the introduction of the foot-powered scroll saw. Jigsaw puzzles also soared in popularity during the Great Depression, as they provided a cheap, long-lasting, recyclable form of entertainment. It was around this time that jigsaws evolved to become more complex and appealing to adults. They were also given away in product promotions and used in advertising with customers completing an image of the promoted product. Some of the largest makers of hand-cut wooden puzzles in the United States in the early 20th century, including pastime puzzles made by Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley Premier Puzzles, Parr Puzzles, Madmar Puzzles,

and J.K. Strauss. Sales of wooden puzzles fell after World War. War II, has improved wages led to price increases, while improvements in manufacturing processes made paperboard jigsaws more attractive. Demand for jigsaw puzzles saw a surge, comparable to that of the Great Depression during the COVID-19 pandemic's stay-at-home orders. Most modern jigsaw puzzles are made of paperboard, as they're easier and cheaper to mass produce. An enlarged photograph or printed reproduction of a painting or other two-dimensional artwork is glued to cardboard, which is then fed into a press.

A press forces a set of hardened steel blades of the desired pattern called a puzzle dye through the board until fully cut. The puzzle dye is a flat board, often made from plywood, with slots cut or burned in the the same shape as the knives that are used. The knives are set into the slots and covered in a compressible material, typically foam rubber, which ejects the cut pieces through. The cutting process is similar to making shaped cookies with a cookie cutter. However, the forces involved are tremendously greater. Beginning in the 1930s, jigsaw puzzles were cut using large,

hydraulic presses that now cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The precise cuts gave us snug fit, but the cost limited jigsaw puzzle production to large corporations. Recent roller press methods achieve the same results at a lower cost. New technology has also enabled laser cutting of wooden or acrylic jigsaw puzzles. The advantage is that the puzzle can be custom cut to any size or shape with any number or average size of pieces. Many museums have laser-cut acrylic puzzles made of some of their art,

so visiting children can assemble puzzles of the images on display. Acrylic pieces are very durable, waterproof, and can withstand continued use without the image degrading. Also because the print and cut patterns are computer-based, missing pieces can easily be remade. By the early 1960s, Tower Press was the world's largest jigsaw puzzle maker. It was acquired by Waddington's in 1969. Numerous, smaller-scale puzzle makers work in artisanal styles, hand-crafting and hand-cutting their creations.

Jigsaw puzzles come in a variety of sizes. Among those marketed to adults, 300, 500, and 750-piece puzzles are considered smaller. More sophisticated but still common puzzles come in sizes of 1,000, 1500, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000 pieces. Jigsaw puzzles geared towards children typically have significantly fewer pieces and are typically much larger. For very young children, puzzles with as few as four to nine large pieces are standard. They are usually made of wood or plastic for durability and can be cleaned without damage. The most common layout for a thousand-piece puzzle is 38-pies puzzle is 38.

pieces by 27 pieces, for an actual total of 1,026 pieces. Most 500-piece puzzles are 27 pieces by 19 pieces, for a total of 513 pieces. A few puzzles are double-sided, so they can be solved from either side. Adding complexity, as the enthusiast must determine if they are looking at the right side of each piece. Family puzzles of 100 to 550 pieces use an assortment of small, medium, and large pieces, with each size going in one direction or towards the middle of the puzzle. This allows a family of different skill levels and hand sizes to work on the puzzle together. Companies like Springbok, Cobble Hill, Seiko, Buffalo Games,

games and Sons Out make this type of specialty puzzle. Ravensburger, on the other hand, formerly made this type of puzzle from 2000 until 2008. There are also three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. Many are made of wood or styrofoam and require the puzzle to be solved in a particular order, as some pieces will not fit if others are already in place. One type of 3D jigsaw puzzle is a puzzle globe, often made of plastic. Like 2D puzzles, the assembled pieces form a single layer, but the final form is three-dimensional. Most globe puzzles have designs representing spherical shapes, such as the Earth, the and historical globes of the earth. Puzzles from the Magic Puzzle Company include a shifting

effect that allows a puzzle to be rearranged to form a new image while revealing extra space to be filled by a separate set of included pieces. Jigsaw puzzles can vary significantly in price depending on their complexity, number of pieces, and brand. In the U.S., children The children's puzzles can start around $5, while larger ones can be closer to $50. The most expensive puzzle to date was sold for $27,000 in 2005 at a charity auction for the Golden Retriever Foundation. Most puzzles are square or rectangular, with edge pieces with one straight side and four corner pieces. However, some puzzles have edge and corner pieces cut like the rest, with no strayed sides, making them more challenging to identify.

Some puzzles are round or in a more complex shape, such as profiles of animals, and their edge pieces are therefore curved. Spherical puzzles can have triangular edge pieces. Otherwise, all or other than, most pieces of a modern jigsaw puzzle interlock by means of round tabs, interjams, and indentations called banks, on adjacent sides. The pieces are normally four-sided and may be uniform in appearance except for the edges and corners. Some puzzles are termed fully interlocking, which means that a group of assembled pieces fit together tightly enough to be moved. without falling apart.

Sometimes a connection is tight enough that a solved section will remain attached when lifted by one piece. Uniformly shaped fully interlocking puzzles, sometimes called Japanese style, are more difficult because pieces are hard to tell apart. Wooden puzzles fit together more loosely with few tabs and blanks,

because of the limits of the material and the cutting technology. They sometimes include pieces in recognizable shapes, such as objects or animals, known as whimsies, silhouettes, or figurals. Designer Yu Asaka has created monochrome jigsaw puzzles with five corner pieces, with two straight edges, and consisting entirely of such pieces. The former was awarded the jury Honorable Mention at the 2018 Puzzle Design Competition. The world's largest size jigsaw puzzle measured 6,122.6 8 meters squared, or 65,904 square feet, was 12,320 pieces.

It was assembled on July 7, 2018 at Dubai Multi-Commodities Center in United Arab Emirates. The jigsaw was the greatest number of pieces had 551,232 pieces and measured 14.85 by 23.2 meters for 48 feet 9 inches by 76 feet 1 inch. It was assembled on September 25, 2011,

at Fuso Indoor Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, by students of the University of Economics, Ho Chi Men City. It is listed by the Guinness World Records for the largest jigsaw puzzle, most pieces, and was divided into 3,132 sections, each containing 176 puzzles, which were assembled individually and then connected to compose the full puzzle. In 2021, researchers conducted a study during which a group of children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old were asked to complete three different types of jigsaw puzzles.

each child was given a normal jigsaw puzzle with a picture on it another with normal shaped pieces but without an image on it and finally a puzzle with an image on it but all the pieces were shaped the same they were shown the completed versions then as to reassemble them the children were given three minutes to complete each puzzle half of the group was given a guide picture while the other half was not. The results revealed that four and five-year-olds were able to complete all three puzzles within the allotted time. Meanwhile, most three-year-olds were able to complete the normal jigsaw puzzle

and the puzzle of normal shaped pieces without an image on it, but struggled more with the puzzle that had an image, but all the pieces were shaped the same. The fastest completion time was with the normal puzzle, and the slowest was with the puzzle with an image and same-shaped pieces. There were also fewer errors in with the children that had a guide. The cognitive development between the different ages can be seen in their completion times

and how many errors were made. The older children were able to complete the puzzles with fewer errors because their mental rotation abilities, which is the ability to rotate an object in your mind, to see it from a different perspective, are further developed than they are for younger children, who are more likely to resort to trial and error. The difference in the visual spatial abilities between boys and girls were studying in 2017, using jigsaw puzzles.

A second grade class was asked to complete three different puzzles. The first was a neutral one of a horse. second was a male-oriented one of a tractor, and a third was a female-oriented one of the character Bambi. The Bambi puzzle had the fastest completion time with all the children, which is believed to be caused by their previous experience. And because it was finished the fastest with all the children, researchers do not believe there is a connection between the puzzle's targeted audience

and the sex of the children. Overall, the girls in the class were faster and made fewer errors. The logo of Wikipedia is the globe made out of jigsaw pieces. The incomplete sphere symbolizes the room to add new knowledge. In the logo of the Colombian office of the Attorney General, a jigsaw puzzle piece appears in the foreground. They named it the key piece, The piece of a puzzle is the proper symbol to visually represent the office of the Attorney General

because it includes the concepts of search, solution, and answers that the entity pursues through the investigative activity. In the 1933 Laurel and Hardy short, Me and My Pal, several characters attempt to complete a large jigsaw puzzle. Lost in Translation is a 1974 poem about a child putting together a jigsaw puzzle, as well as an interpretive puzzle itself. Life, a user's manual, 1978, George Perig's most famous novel, tells as pieces of a puzzle, a story about a jigsaw puzzle maker. Jigsaw puzzle, sometimes spelled jigsaw with a hyphen puzzle.

is a song by the rock and roll band, The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet. Jigsaw falling into place is a song by the alternative rock band Radiohead, released in 2007 as part of their album, In Rainbows. In the 1941 film Citizen Kane, Susan Alexander Kane is reduced to spending her days completing Jigsaw, after the failure of her operatic career. Rhett and Link do a rainy-day jigsaw puzzle is a short video by self-described internetners, portmanteau of internet and entertainers,

Rhett and Link, which portrays the frustration of discovering a puzzle piece is missing. In 2022, Andorra issued a commemorative two euro coin, on the national side of which, a figure of puzzle pieces was stamped, symbolizing the principality of Andorra and the countries belonging to the European Union. According to the Alzheimer's Society of Canada, doing jigsaw puzzles is one of many activities that can help keep the brain active and may

reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship is an annual event organized by the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, supported by multiple national associations, such as the United States Jigsaw Puzzle Association and Australian Jigsaw Puzzle Association. The World Championship was started in 2019, and all editions have been held in Valladolid Spain. The championship includes three events, team, pairs, and individual. The 2019 championships were the first time a world ranking is available for Jigsaw Puzzle Competitors. In 2019, the World Jigsaw Puzz Federation was founded, and in the same year, the first World

Jigsaw Championship was held in Valladola, Spain. The 2024 event was also held in Valadolid from the 17th to the 22nd of September. Three events are contested in the championships. In all events, placement is determined by the fastest completion within the time limit. For competitors who have not finished the assigned puzzles within the time limit, the remaining pieces are counted to determine position. Team event. Teams of four complete multiple puzzles, 1,500 or 2,000 pieces in the time limit.

Pairs event. Two competitors complete a single puzzle, 500 or 1,000 pieces, within a time limit. Individual event. Each individual participant completes a 500-piece puzzle within a time limit. in the first World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships, only one final round was held in each event. In 2022, the semifinals were introduced in all events. For 2023, due to the increase in the number of participants,

another round has also been introduced prior to the semifinals of the individual event. For 2024, also a first round has been introduced prior to the semifinals prior to the semifinals of the pairs event. As of 2025, five subcategories of awards have been added. Individual junior 18, players under 18 years old. Individual senior A, players from 45 to 60 years old. Individual senior B, players age 60 plus.

Individual debutante and pairs debutant. Both Debuton's categories are for players who have not competed in the category at a previous WJPC.