“The Very Best” for 75 Years

Some folks in the puzzle world may be aware of the history of Springbok puzzles, but at one point they were actually acquired by the company Hallmark. So there is a period of Springbok puzzles that have a certain flare and that is because of Hallmark’s influence.

I’m sure, if you’ve seen enough of my Springbok blog posts, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about. Now, I will always cherish the early generation of Springbok creations, but I’m quite partial to the Hallmark productions too! They have a certain amount of kitsch and they often explore some pretty funny and often ridiculous themes, They have a different flare that is unique to the 80s and 90s, which is very nostalgic for this 80s and 90s kid, here.

This gorgeous collage was released in 1985 to commemorate the 75th year of business for Hallmark. You may have noticed in my first photo of the back of the box, there is a legend of every piece displayed in this collage. These greeting cards celebrate all occasions, literally everything you could think of that would need celebrating, Hallmark made it.

Now, my latest blog post, Dime Store Times, was not quite as fun as I had hoped it would be. But this puzzle was exactly perfect, collages are always so fun to assemble (in my opinion) they can be a bit busy but I feel that assembling all the little images is like doing a whole bunch of mini puzzles and finding how they all connect with each other. I love a mini, as I’ve said before, but I also love a 1000 piece puzzle. I especially love if a puzzle can be both!

I also love how this had bits of text to hunt for as well as images, some colourful and eye catching and others subdued and monochromatic.

Now, I think Hallmark owned the rights to certain pop culture characters over the years. So you may have noticed Miss Piggy and Kermit, Peanuts, Mickey Mouse, Olive Oil from Popeye, and I’m sure there were many more! There were also some Precious Moments cards, I always associated them with Hallmark but now I’m realising that they likely just owned the rights to publish their images and products.

This puzzle is complete and it was such a fun assemble! I worked on this over two days and it was just so engaging that I didn’t want to stop! It was honestly a nice surprise, I’ve had this in my to do pile for a little while now and I really didn’t expect it to be so fun. I love these surprise puzzles, which is a reason why I will always give the harder images a chance!