Sunday, February 23, 2014

Jaymar Jigsaw Puzzle - Down the Rabbit Hole

To round out our journey through the world of puzzles, we come back to the good ole USA, and Jaymar jigsaw puzzles.  The Jaymar Specialty Company was founded by Jacob Marx, father of Louis Marx, whose company was responsible for lots of tin toys, not to mention Disneykins.  Who knew that Dad's company made puzzles?  In the minutes of extensive research I did on Jaymar, it appears as though it may have closed in the 1980s.  I do know that they made puzzles up to The Fox and the Hound, but can't be sure they still exist.
First in the series of four is Down the Rabbit Hole, featuring art of Alice chasing the White Rabbit away from his house, with a couple of Bread and Butter Flies thrown in for good measure along with a few of the Live Flowers!
What's really odd about this series of puzzles is that it came in tow different colored boxes:  the common fuscia colored box above, and the extremely rare teal box we see here below.  I cannot tell you how long it took be to get a full set of teal boxes, but it was upwards of 20 years.
The title of the puzzle is printed on the side of the box.  The number you see here is probably the series number for the Alice puzzles, as the same number appears on all four titles.
As the box says, the pieces in this puzzle are quite large, and it is a simple puzzle to put together, making quite a large finished product, 19x14 inches.  During the "Great Sort" back in 2008, a friend of ours assembled every puzzle (we had vast numbers) to determine if all pieces were present.  She discovered that each and every puzzle uses the same jig - the template from which the pieces are cut - and that there are some very fun shapes, including a car, a dog, and a hat!
She put together so many of these puzzles that by the end she was having us time her to see how quickly she could put one together.

3 comments:

Sam said...

Actually this is one of the STRANGER puzzle illustrations: Yes, Alice is chasing after the White Rabbit to a Hole, but I'm certain that's his house in the background!

I'm not to keen on the way Alice is drawn running . . .

manateegirl said...

I'm curious if this puzzle is worth saving.

Matt said...

It depends on what you mean by 'worth', are looking at it strictly as an investment or do you enjoy looking at it or playing with it. If the former it will probably never be worth more than $25 or so, but if the latter, it can be priceless.