Luxury Goods SpecialJigsaws

If you thought that wooden jigsaw puzzles were a quaint blast from the past, long consigned to the dustbin of recreational history, along with sticks, hoops, tops and diabolo, let me assure you that it ain’t necessarily so.

First thought up by Thomas Spilsbury, a printer of maps, in the early 1760s, the original ‘dissections’ were created to help children learn their geography. Thomas pasted maps of the four continents (yes, we have no Australia) to thin sheets of mahogany, then cut around the borders of each country with a fretsaw, and sold the puzzles in plain wooden boxes. The British Library has just obtained a Spilsbury set in their original boxes. Another set of about 15 rather tatty Spilsbury puzzles in a cabinet originally belonging to Queen Anne was sold at Christie’s a couple of years ago (£48,000, since you ask). These now belong to an American collector whose views on the Brits’ (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to withhold an export licence are unprintable.