Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Blue Box Series from England - #11 The White Rabbit's House

Third in the Blue Box series is #11 The White Rabbit's House.

Again with the slightly unusual art, clearly by the same artist.  But on the up  side, Bill!  This time carrying a broom (?) instead of a ladder.  Or perhaps it is a chimney sweep.

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Blue Box Series from England - #10 The Walrus & The Carpenter

Second in the series of Blue Box puzzles is #10 The Walrus & The Carpenter.

What a great puzzle, I love the art, something you don't see too much on vintage merchandise.  The Japanese would go crazy over this one.

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Blue Box Series from England - #9 Tweedledum & Tweedledee

Less well known than their black box brethren are these blue box puzzles by Welcom.  An altogether different series which seems to include other characters than just Alice, the first Alice puzzle in the series is #9, Tweedledum & Tweedledee

Besides the different color box and larger series of non-Alice characters, these puzzles are also smaller and much easier to assemble - only 72 pieces and 9½ x 7 inches, half the size of the black box puzzles.

Let's talk about the art, shall we?  This art is based on a promotional still that we saw in the Color Glos post here.  But the art here, shall we say, is a little odd.  I'm pretty sure this art was done in house at Welcom, or at least in England.  It very much resembles the art found in an English book which I hope to post in the not too distant future.

Advertised as Big Piece puzzles for Younger Folk, it makes sense that these are easier to put together.

As with the black box puzzles, the box is fully illustrated on all sides although the long sides have the same illustration, one would assume that these characters adorn other puzzles in the series.

Company name boldly emblazoned on one end, and the full list of puzzles in this particular series on the other.

As with the black box puzzles, it was difficult getting nice images of all sides of the box.  All boxes by Welcom seem to be of the glued flap persuasion.  I put together a full box image below by scanning the best bits of several boxes.

Share and enjoy!

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Black Box Series from England - #4 Wonderland Croquet Game

Last in the series of Black Box puzzles from Welcom is #4, Wonderland Croquet Game.  We've seen this image before too, in the Valentine jigsaw puzzles.

This puzzle, or rather the box, presented me with some difficulty.  The previous owner, having dutifully assembled the puzzle, put it back in the box and reglued it shut.  Unfortunately the glue ran down the inside of the box and a few pieces got lightly stuck.  So once I pried the flaps open, I had to unstick a few pieces.  But, at least they are all here :-)

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Black Box Series from England - #3 The Garden of Live Flowers

Third in the series of Black Box puzzles from Welcom is, you guessed it, #3 The Garden of Live Flowers

OMG, this puzzle was a bitch to put together.  The lower left and upper right corners drove me up a wall.  But don't you just love the art, especially with that fantastic Rocking Horsefly?

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Black Box Series from England - #2 Alice's Wonderland

Second in the series of Welcom black box puzzles is #2, Alice's Wonderland.

This puzzle features another example of the assembled art that I call the Wonderland Scene.  Perhaps I should start calling this Alice's Wonderland.

Welcom Jigsaw Puzzle Black Box Series from England - #1 The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

And now we come to perhaps the best known of the English puzzles, the Welcom puzzles.  First up, you guessed it, the Mad Tea Party!  Made by the Williams, Ellis & Co., Ltd. (Welcom) of London.  Sadly this company appears to no longer be in business.

I guess technically it is called The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, but geez, can we please get a new image already?  Oh yeah, tomorrow.

This is a pretty decent puzzle, it took me about an hour to put this together.  It is (as the box says) 9½ x 14 inches, and over 200 pieces.  I counted 204, so yes it is just barely over 200 pieces.

The black box series is a full set of Alice puzzles - called Alice in Disneyland - four in number, and are pretty hard to find.  Make that damn hard to find.  The boxes are nicely illustrated on all sides, with the top and bottom featuring the same art of Alice, the top with the picture of the puzzle, and the bottom with the list of available puzzles.  I must say Alice is slightly off model, and looks like she was rendered by the same artist as in a bizarre English book that I'll post soon.

Even the sides have cool headshots of various Wonderland denizens.

There is even a Baby Oyster!  And Bill!  And the Caterpillar!  Way ahead of their time...

Company name boldly emblazoned on either end.

I must admit, it was difficult getting nice images of all sides of the box.  As I alluded to in an earlier post, these boxes were really more like wrappers.  They are cardboard, but pretty thin cardboard, and they have end flaps rather than lids, and the end flaps are glued shut.  So to open the box you have to tear open the box, instantly destroying it.  I do have a full box unopened, but even it is in pretty bad shape since the puzzle itself takes up almost no space inside, and the boxes are easily crushed.  I put together a full box image below by scanning the best bits of several boxes.  Probably way more trouble than it was worth.  Like I've got better things to do with my spare time.

Share and enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day - 1960s Tri-fold Valentine - Another Variant

Happy Valentine's Day to all my faithful readers!  This valentine card is very similar to the ones I posted here last year and here the year before.  It is tri-fold with the same color scheme as last year's, but this it is not die-cut.

I place this as the newest of the three variants, based on the fact that it is no longer die-cut and therefore cheaper to produce.  I recently came across this picture of a full package of Disney valentines, of which this was one.

Winter Wonderland

So today it snowed like hell.  Took this picture of Wonderland with the 12" of snowfall and drifts.  And it is snowing again.  Joy.

Ponda Jigsaw Puzzle from England - The Mad Tea Party

I don't know about you, but this looks to be identical to the Mad Tea Party puzzle from yesterday but it is, in fact, made by an entirely different manufacturer - Ponda Puzzle Products Ltd, St. Leonard's-on-Sea, Sussex.

Closer inspection of the puzzle itself shows that it is a different puzzle, just using the same art, although cropped slightly differently.  The jig for the puzzle is entirely different though.

This puzzle appears to be part of a set (D2) from Ponda, which includes at least two more puzzles (3 Caballeros and Pinocchio), but it is unclear from when or how many.

There is an excellent jigsaw puzzle site called Jigsaurus that has pictures of all three Ponda puzzles in the D2 set, plus TONS of other English jigsaw puzzles from a variety of manufacturers.

We've seen Ponda puzzles here on the blog before, a little Alice puzzle posted back in 2010.

Academy Jigsaw Puzzle from England - The Mad Tea Party

Back to England for today's puzzle, another wooden jigsaw puzzle in a box, but this time from a different manufacturer.

The Academy puzzle featuring art from the Mad Tea Party was manufactured by J. Salmon Ltd, of Sevenoaks, Kent.  Turns out this company is still around, in fact has been around since 1880 and still family run!

These days they specialize in calendars and prints, the business the company was founded upon, and it is the oldest calendar company in Britain.  I must say I feel quite an affinity for them as my family founded and ran the oldest art calendar company in America until they were bought out in the 1980s by a corporate monster who dissected it, sold it for parts, and closed it.  But I digress.

Originally priced at 3 and 2 (three shillings twopence), this would equate to about $0.44 in 1951 dollars.

Laerdal Frame Tray Puzzle from Norway - Croquet Scene

Another frame tray puzzle from Norway's Laerdal company, this time the ubiquitous Croquet Scene.

I'm not sure if this is the full set of Alice puzzles, but I've never seen any others.  Guess the King was looking for a change of pace the day he picked out this particular robe and wig.

Laerdal Frame Tray Puzzle from Norway - Alice at the White Rabbit's House

Beautiful frame tray puzzle from Norway, made by the Asmund S. Laerdal company.

It is unclear as to the vintage of this puzzle, but based on the other puzzles that came with this and the one tomorrow, I'm guessing late 1950s or early 1960s.

The Asmund S. Laerdal company - or more properly Åsmund S. Lærdal, was founded by, you guessed it, Åsmund S. Lærdal, a noted Norwegian physician.  According to his Wikipedia page, he founded the publishing house in 1940.  Surprisingly his major contribution to the world was not this puzzle, but rather CPR.  In fact, he was one of the developers of Annie, the CPR training mannequin.

Valentine & Sons Jigsaw Puzzle JP-813 - Croquet Scene

Last (of my puzzles) in the Valentine boxed wooden jigsaw puzzles is JP-813, featuring art of a collection of characters from the Queen of Hearts segment, what I call the Croquet Scene.  I don't know how many there are in the set, but I'm guessing there are at least four, meaning that I'm missing (probably) at least one.  The three that I have are sequential in their stock numbers, so it is unclear if there are any more.  But I digress...

The art for this puzzle, as well as that from yesterday, was assembled and not a frame from the film.  It adorned many things, including publicity stills and dye transfer prints.  I'm not sure if the art was drawn or created as a cel setup as I've not seen the original.

Another complete puzzle!  What's nice about this particular series of puzzles are the boxes.  Most English puzzles of the time featured very flimsy cardboard boxes that were more like wrappers, and were glued shut forcing the box to be essentially destroyed upon opening - as we'll see shortly.  These boxes have an actual lid that lifts off, just like a board game, so the boxes were not damaged in order to get to the puzzle.

Valentine & Sons Jigsaw Puzzle JP-812 - Wonderland Scene

Second in the Valentine & Sons puzzles is JP-812, featuring a cast of characters from the first half of the film, what I call the Wonderland Scene.

The previous owner decided they needed to identify this as their property, kinda looks like co-pilot, but I'm sure it's not.

This one is complete!  Yay!  Dig the crazy colors on the Dodo, Bill, and the Tweedles.  Caterpillar is a little off, but not bad.

Valentine & Sons Jigsaw Puzzle JP-811 - The White Rabbit's House

Let's do some puzzles, shall we?  This very cool jigsaw puzzle is one of a set of unknown number by the company Valentine & Sons, Ltd. of Great Britain.  I've previously posted a birthday card puzzles of theirs here.

As with the birthday puzzle, this jigsaw puzzle is made of wood, with a very nice image of Alice at the White Rabbit's house.  Unfortunately this particular example is missing two pieces, but as I've never seen another one of this particular image, it will have to do.

The box is very cool, with lots of line art of Alice characters including a flamingo (!).  The sticker on the lid is cute too, shaped like Mickey's head.  There is a sticker on the side of the box that lists its stock number, JP-811.

1952 Australian Daybill

Here's something that until I acquired it I had never seen before, though I knew it had to exist:  An Australian Daybill.

A daybill is a little like a US insert, but smaller at only 13x30 inches.  The art on the daybill is adapted from the pervasive advertising art first seen in January 1951 in Life Magazine.  The quickest way to identify an Australian daybill (without a tape measure) is to look for the triangular emblem on the poster stating For General Exhibition.

Daybills are very popular among movie poster collectors due to their size - almost every home has wall space for something 13x30, while very few homes have wall space for a 6-sheet.

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-85 - The Queen of Hearts (and the King)

The last of the reference photos from the Key Book set is this of the King and Queen of Hearts (hooray!).

Again, I don't think I've seen a reference photo for these two characters before.  I can't really tell where this is from, but the Queen certainly is pissed off.  But then again, when is she not?

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-30 - The Walrus

I can't recall seeing a reference photo for the Walrus before!  How cool is this?

And check out what they used as Baby Oysters - bars of soap!  Would've been funnier if they had used empty oyster tins.