National Jigsaw Puzzle Day was November 3, and there was a buzz at the Middletown Public Library on a recent Saturday morning. It wasn’t the buzz of a jigsaw, but the buzz of the library’s fall jigsaw puzzle swap.
There were 100, 500 and 750-piece puzzles. The most popular were the two tables filled with 1,000-piece puzzles. Jenna Elmore, of Newport, took the prize for bringing in the largest puzzle. When she entered the swap with puzzles up to her chin, she was carrying a 4,000-piece puzzle. Others came with bags filled to set out on the tables labeled 100, 500, 750 and 1,000 around the library’s community room.
Doing research on this topic, a Guinness World Records for the “Largest Jigsaw Puzzle – Most Pieces,” popped up. Taking the world record is a puzzle with 551,232 pieces. It measured 48 feet, 9 inches by 76 feet 1 inch, and was divided into 3,132 sections each containing 176 pieces. It was assembled in Vietnam in 2011. Another fact appeared: an Annual World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship began in 2019 and is held in Spain.
The library swap was started by Holly Levine of Middletown, right after the pandemic. “I had done all my puzzles,” she said, and figured others had too. So, since masks were no longer required, she thought it would be a good way for people to get back out and continue the popular pastime…