Doing Jigsaw Puzzles with the Jigthings People

You know how some people talk about doing jigsaw puzzles as being boring? Well we don’t! We reckon we are a bunch of well-balanced, fun-loving, go-getting, life-adoring, hard-workers who are also passionate about puzzles. What’s more, we’re proud of it!

Lisa and Colin (the founders of the business) both loved jigsaw puzzles before they met. They made puzzles together whilst they were courting, they have made countless hundreds since they have been married and hope to still be making them in 2050 when they will be 100.

Pete, their much younger nephew, shares their passion for jigsaws and it is he who now carries the mantle to keep the business going forwards.

So how did it all begin? In 1999 Lisa and Colin discovered a very odd thing about the people around them. Their family and friends constantly told them ‘I’m not really into puzzles’. That was OK with Lisa and Colin, they were happy to live and let live BUT… put a puzzle in front of those self same people and they would positively steal it! They hogged the best chairs around it, did all the most interesting bits first, arrived late for meals and went late to bed until it was finished. After which they would again declare, much to the annoyance of Colin, ‘I’m not really into puzzles’. ‘Well bug*** me’ Colin was heard to whisper ‘you could have fooled me’!

It dawned on Lisa and Colin that what their friends really meant was ‘We don’t like all the hassle that usually goes with jigsaws’. It’s no fun to be constantly picking pieces up off the floor; it’s no fun to find that the dog has chewed some of the pieces; it’s no fun to be constantly fighting for ‘table space’ and it most certainly is no fun to come to the end of a puzzle to find that the last piece is nowhere to be found. What was needed they determined was a ‘Jigsaw Management System’. After a good deal of thought and borrowed money, Jigsort emerged and much to the delight of Lisa and Colin it is now loved and cherished by thousands of people throughout the world.

Jigboard and Jigsafe soon followed and were well received by jigsaw puzzle aficionados. Spurred on by a local newspaper article that referred to them as ‘The Dyson of the jigsaw puzzle accessory world’ (!) they came up with the ideas for Jigframe, Jigstore and the jigsaw table. With slight modifications and improvements they are all still flourishing today.

And has it all been a bed of roses? Not at all. We went into production with an earth-shattering idea called ‘Jigmat’ that sold somewhat worse than dead rats. Ideas for a rotating table and an extremely expensive wooden ‘JigSecure’ got lost by the wayside as did ‘JigInflatable’ that now seems so ridiculous that we can’t even bring ourselves to talk about it!

As reward for ploughing your way through the details of our fairly mundane but tremendously enjoyable lives we will let you into a little secret. We have seen and used all sorts of puzzle accessories of our own and other people’s and here is the way that we personally believe that most people get the most pleasure from doing jigsaws…

1. They buy a Jigboard 1000 and a Jigsafe
2. They do their puzzles on the Jigboard and keep the loose pieces in the Jigsafe
3. They put the Jigsafe on top of the Jigboard when not in use
4. They freely move the Jigboard around to various places in their home
5. They do puzzles from several different manufacturers

That’s all about us folks – we hope you’ll like us!