(no subject)

Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground
(1970)

Now you just say, "Oh Romeo? Yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him".
(1980)

Wooden Map Puzzles.

bedfull_o_books' niece was playing with a United States wooden puzzle. It occurred to me that there must be ones for other places, right?

So I did some quick research. And in fact there are. Just for my own memory and for anyone else who might care:

Australia Map Pegged Puzzle

Wooden Canada Map Puzzle

Wooden Map Puzzles (for countries including the US, China, France, Italy, UK, Spain; the state of California by county; and regions of the world including Africa, Central America, Europe, Asia, and South America. Custom maps can also be ordered.)

Wooden map of Mexico puzzle looks like it's in the same style as the ones above.

Puzzle Map: Australia (map is from Bangalore and includes NZ for some reason)

I'm still looking for links for places like Brazil, India, Indonesia, and the Russian Federation. But it's a start.

John Spilsbury apparently invented the jigsaw puzzle by making map puzzles.

Spilsbury created the first puzzle in 1767 as an educational tool to teach geography. He had affixed a world map to wood and carved each country out to create the first puzzle. Sensing a business opportunity, he created puzzles on eight themes - the World, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

I imagine his puzzles are worth quite a lot nowadays.