Sunday, May 06, 2012

Sunday puzzler


Anyone want to take a guess at why this is clearly a pre-WWII puzzle?

Hint: click to enlarge, or right-click and open image in a new window for the largest view.

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 ~~Click here for the solution~~

~~Spoiler in comment section as well.~~

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22 comments:

John Venlet said...

Embiggening the puzzle was of no assistance in me wagering a guess, so I'll wild guess it's pre-WWII puzzle because of the crackling.

Anonymous said...

Is there a map in there somewhere?

MR

Rex said...

Is it a hand cut puzzle?

Erin O'Brien said...

No map, and the condition has nothing to do with it. The puzzle is cardboard and I'm pretty sure it was stamped.

Oh what a delicious joy that no one has gotten it yet!

Erin O'Brien said...

Wait one second ... embiggening?

Sean Craven said...

I'm no puzzle enthusiast, but the one real distinction I can see is the lack of 'toggling' for want of a better word -- there are little extrusions with round tips in puzzle pieces that make them interlock firmly when assembled, so the puzzle is structurally sound. That puzzle looks as if any little knock on the table would put it into disarray.

Just a guess.

Sean Craven said...

The lettering on the box is gorgeous, by the way. As I've said before, whatever happened to style?

Erin O'Brien said...

Sean, you are right. Although the box asserts "interlocking," many of the pieces are "push puzzle" style and the tiniest nudge is like an earthquake with this puzzle.

It's one of the things that make it at once maddening and charming.

Erin O'Brien said...

People, you cannot know how tickled I am to have stumped you for this long!

Dear Lord, I don't ask for much. Please let this sweet joy last--if only for a few more hours.

Erin O'Brien said...

The other thing that dates this puzzle is that there is no image on the box. So you not only had the fun of doing the puzzle, there was the mystery of discovering what it depicted.

John Venlet said...

Embiggen:

A perfectly cromulent word.
To make bigger, to make larger, to make size increase


I kinda like the word embiggen, and not just because it's cromulent.

Al The Retired Army Guy said...

There is a swastika as one of the pieces.

Al
TRAG

Anonymous said...

Following Al here...

Are the women German or Polish Jews? Was it made in an Axis country?

RJ

Erin O'Brien said...

GRRRR, Al! You're embiggening me!

Here's a solution photo.

It's amazing to think how a figure that was once so innocuous it was often used as a whimsy piece in a Five & Dime puzzle transformed into a universal symbol of evil.

Sean Craven said...

Am I allowed to suggest that embiggening is cromulent?

And, Ahahahahaha! Right again. I worked for that one.

The posts you've previously done on jigsaw puzzles had me ready to roll on this one, actually. I love the aesthetic details of forms in which I'm not involved.

Kirk said...

So did Hitler do a jigsaw?

John Venlet said...

It's amazing to think how a figure that was once so innocuous it was often used as a whimsy piece in a Five & Dime puzzle transformed into a universal symbol of evil.

As an interesting aside, I've a 9 volume set of Kipling's works, published by Doubleday & Co. in 1914, and each volume, just prior to the title page, has Kipling's name printed in a circle and immediately underneath Kipling's name is the swastika.

If you put up another such puzzling riddle, I'm gonna follow the hints Sean has alluded to.

Anonymous said...

There is a Hindu character(Sanskrit?) that looks like the swastika that pre-dates Nazism by a couple thousand years.

RJ

rraine said...

rj, you are correct. the nazis just rotated it 45 degrees, so it looks like it's reversed. it's an affirmation of life, meaning, among other things, "life is good!"
http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Hindu%20Primer/swastika.html

Nin Andrews said...

I love this puzzler. How fun!

Anonymous said...

I believe the swastika was also a symbol of certain native American peoples.

"Embiggen" has had several usages on the Simpsons. But I had forgotten the "cromulent" set-up-When that episode (cromulent) aired I nearly spit out my tonsils laughing...

MR

Erin O'Brien said...

From the box:

The Ullman Mfg. Co. N.Y.

Made in U.S.A

And your humble hostess apologizes for her lack of skill in the photography department. One day I shall remedy that.