Top 5 puzzles of 2024

It’s time for my annual review of my five favourite puzzles that I assembled this year. As always, this is a tough call for me to make, I like most all of them for specific reasons, but when I took a look back through my blog posts from the past year, these ones jumped out at me as the very special ones.

Number five on my top fives list:

Ok, starting off with a tough one. Celestial Planisphere from the Great American Puzzle Factory from 1989. This made the list because it was absolutely the complete package. The quality, was amazing, but what really hit the mark with this one, was the fact that it glowed in the dark, (really well too) and the comprehensive 30 page information booklet. The only drawback for me was that this puzzle had a two by two cut, I do think that it could have had a bit more variation in the piece cut, but that’s me being very nit-picky!

Next on the list is Springbok’s Pixel Perfect. I pulled this out last February after having it on my shelf for a while, I knew it was going to be a special assemble, so this was one of those ones that I was “saving”. Well, I was not wrong, I was hooked immediately, it was just such an engaging puzzle to put together. The final image is gorgeous and so very much of its time. “A Computer Generated Jigsaw Puzzle Design”. Perfect for anyone that loves graphic design, which, I suppose the question would be…. Who doesn’t?

Moving along, my third favourite puzzle of the year would have to be UN-SPOT-ABLE from the American Publishing Corp in the 1980s. It was an official competition puzzle and it was so hard! I cannot imagine doing this for a competition, I worked on this for a week, and it was so hard to focus on anything else in my life! The final image is absolutely stunning which is why I needed to showcase it once again.

And, here we have another giant cat face! Ha ha ha! But bear with me here, the round cut inside of a square puzzle is such beautiful attention to detail that makes this 1970s Springbok puzzle, aptly titled Midnight my second favourite puzzle of the year of puzzles. Yes, there are interesting puzzles being made today, I acknowledge that, but in my opinion, these vintage puzzles just have it all. Amazing images, poems on the boxes, gorgeous quality pieces, and that kitsch aesthetic that can’t be replicated!

And now for my favourite puzzle of the year! Prehistoric World from American Publishing Corp once again. I have to say that I had a fair number of puzzles by this company that made my list this year. I had done a few from them this year that were just really gorgeous!

Anyway, are we really surprised at my favourite puzzle of the year? This was the find of a lifetime, for any dinosaur fanatic, this is a winner. I may even have to pull it out and assemble it for New Year’s Eve!

This was a fun year for thepuzzlesivedone, I made some contacts in the puzzle world, I assembled a couple very nice travelling puzzles from Canadian wooden puzzle company, Stumpcraft. I had a booth at two local vintage shows in town, and I found a lot of great vintage puzzles to assemble for 2025! I can’t wait to share those with you.

Thank you all for reading these posts, coming along with me as I gush about printed cardboard, it truly means a lot to me. I hope that everyone has a happy new year and we’ll see you in the next post!