Jigsaws and Personality

For today’s jigsaw puzzle aficionado, there are any number of options to consider in choosing the next challenge. Cardboard or wooden? How many pieces? (Eureka offers the 24,000-piece “Life: The Greatest Puzzle” for those with truly insatiable appetites for beffudlement.) Shall I try my luck with an Impossible, which comes with no edges and five extra pieces? Or a Wasgij, whose illustration is not the image I’m trying to assemble? Meanwhile, jigsaw artisans offer an array of uniquely-shaped pieces: cats, trumpets, horseshoes, apples and what-have-you that fit alongside traditional curves and slots. Ingenious methods of cutting the images produce ever more cunning orientations of pieces that will give pause to even the most veteran solver.

But the preeminent consideration in selecting a jigsaw remains the image. It is the image that gives the puzzle its personality, its sense of immediacy, its special connection to the solver. Different images carry with them not only individual themes, but their own moods, temperatures and nuances, which may vary from viewer to viewer. With over a thousand puzzles to choose from, we at Eureka try our best to cater t0 every taste, and we’re always delighted when a customer pulls off the shelf a picture of their small hometown in Germany, or their favorite painting by John Sargent.

But what, you may be saying, if my small hometown in Alabama or favorite painting by Paul Klee is unrepresented in Eureka’s library? What if I’d like a puzzle of my grandmother and her cat?

It’s our pleasure to offer these as well. There are two exciting options for those seeking just the right picture. Firstly, we can create a custom puzzle, in either cardboard or wood, as small as 30 pieces or as large as 1,000, of any image you provide. Just send us a digital copy online – or better yet, bring one into the store – and allow a couple of weeks for manufacture.

Or if you’d prefer an infinite supply of images, the innovative Ji Ga Zo has you covered. Input any picture you’d like into your computer, and the Ji Ga Zo will convert it into a black-and-white photomosaic. Then use the three hundred gradated pieces, which can be recombined in any configuration, to reproduce the image using a code provided by the Ji Ga Zo program. The same three hundred pieces can be used to create an endless variety of pictures. Eureka is currently the only retailer in the country offering this program in-store.

We pride ourselves on our jigsaw collection at Eureka, and if you come in and browse our shelves we’re confident you’ll meet your match. But if there’s only one picture in the world for you, we’ve got your back. After all, piece count and material are all very well, but in the end it’s personality that counts.