It’s no secret that I enjoy a good jigsaw as I’ve shared various pictures of the ones I’ve completed over the years already. Sometimes my love of Enid Blyton and my love of jigsaws even combines.

I bought a new Blyton jigsaw last week so I thought maybe it was time to do a post showing off my whole collection.

4-12 pieces

I bought this Noddy set of jigsaws for “Brodie” years ago. He’s long outgrown them but I won’t let him give them away.

The strange thing about them is that three of the four have pieces which although they physically fit, the image doesn’t line up. I can only assume that somewhere either while being manufactured or played with pieces from 2 or more sets have got mixed up.

100 pieces

I was about to say something about jigsaw piece counts generally not being right but these both actually do have 100 pieces so I will keep that fact to myself for now.

I found these in a gift shop on holiday a couple of years ago. I may not enjoy the books but I do love Ruth Palmer’s artwork.

224 pieces

This 1975 Whitman puzzle I got from my sister was supposed to have 224 pieces (an unusually specific piece count for a box). It shows Julian and Dick (flares and all) approaching the caravan in Ravens Wood looking for George.

Sadly my specific puzzle only had 213 pieces. (I’m not counting the one random piece in the box that turned out to be from another jigsaw entirely.)

250 pieces

Aha! Time for my favourite jigsaw fact. Did you know that most jigsaws don’t have the exact number of pieces that it states on the box? Usually it’s slightly more than advertised. This is because of maths. Unfortunately this means that counting the pieces to see if it’s complete isn’t any use.

In this case a 25×10 jigsaw would give a strange ratio, so the Adventure Series TV puzzle (which in no way resembles the book) actually has 252 pieces (18×14). This is one of those puzzle ones which comes with a little story booklet and you have to answer questions based on the puzzle once it’s complete (there’s no picture on or in the box of what the puzzle actually looks like.)

The puzzle I found in a charity shop last week is also 252 pieces but is 12×21. It’s another Ruth Palmer book cover – I didn’t actually realise until now that these came in two sizes.

1000 pieces

I’m actually not sure if I have a completed photo of this one. I do know that it was missing two pieces even though it was bought brand-new (and no, I never got around to asking for a replacement) so I maybe didn’t bother at the time.

It probably should have had 1,008 or 1,026 pieces.

Again, because of ratios this only features 18 of the Eileen Soper front covers. Three rows of seven wouldn’t have fitted the standard dimensions for a 1,000 piece jigsaw.

The books aren’t in series order so it’s harder to instantly spot what’s missing.

The top row has Five on a Treasure Island (1) then Five Go Adventuring Again (2), but the third book (Five Run Away Together) is missing. They then have Five Go to Smuggler’s Top (4) (with the reprint’s cover) Five Go Off in a Caravan (5) and Five on Kirrin Island Again (6) (the original with the back-to-front telescope). So mostly in order so far. Then we jump to book nineteen – Five Go to Demon’s Rocks.

The second row starts with Five Get Into Trouble (8) with its reprint cover, then Five on a Secret Trail (15), Five Go to Billycock Hill (16), Five Have Plenty of Fun (14) Five Have a Wonderful Time (11) and Five Have a Mystery to Solve (20). For some reason the Amazon photo I’ve used before has the cover for Camp with the title for Demon’s Rocks at the end of row 2.

The bottom row then has Five on Finniston Farm (18), Five on a Hike Together (10), Five Go to Mystery Moor (13), Five Go Off to Camp (7), Five Get into a Fix (17) and Five Go Down to the Sea (12).

That means the missing titles are Five Fall Into Adventure, Five Are Together Again and as mentioned above, Five Run Away Together. I always try to puzzle out why those behind books, games, toys etc make the decisions that they do. All I can think of is that for a balance of colours they had to mix the order around and that the missing three were either less attractive or tipped the colour balance too heavily.

Either way it looks great and a jigsaw with 18 book covers is better than no jigsaw at all.

I’m tempted to do this one again (despite the missing pieces) just so I have a picture of it. I didn’t actually break it apart fully when I put it away so I could kind of cheat and use the completed chunks to start me off. I’ll see how I feel when it comes to it.