Personalised Aerial Photo Jigsaws

An aerial photograph used in one of Firebox's personalised jigsaws

2004-11-15 - London, England: Ah, the humble Jigsaw Puzzle.

Invented in Europe in the 1760s, the first jigsaw puzzles were originally made as educational toys by European mapmakers who pasted dissected paper maps onto wooden playing pieces. And now, almost 250 years later, jigsaw puzzles have been ushered into the digital age of aerial photography and personalisation with Postcode Puzzles by English company Firebox.

Residents of England and Wales, can find out what their house looks like from 5,500 feet with Firebox's personalised aerial photograph jigsaw. So now the English and Welsh have a perfect way to while away the winter hours by completing a devilishly tricky jigsaw puzzle emblazoned with an aerial photo of their castle or cottage.

The Firebox personalized jigsaw range was one of the first products covered in MadeForOne.com. The original product used a customer's postcode to produce a jigsaw map centred on the customer's house. (See earlier news item). These are still available, in three different map types. The new Aerial Edition uses exclusive overhead photography to give you a bird's eye view of the surrounding area. It shows either 1 mile east to west and 3/4 miles north to south for the 255-piece jigsaw, or an area of 1.4 miles E to W and 1 mile N to S for the 400-piece jigsaw. As mentioned, the product is available for addresses in England and Wales only. It is also only available for delivery to addresses in these countries. So Osama Bin Laden can forget about getting a jigsaw of London to while away the hours in his cave.

One point to note is that the Getmapping Aerial Photography (Scale: 1:4520) used in the puzzles were taken between 1999 and 2000. So if you have recently built your dream home in the countryside, your personalised map would still show a green field.

The 255-piece has an assembled size of 356 x 271mm, while the larger 400-piece assembled size is 472 x 312mm.

The personalised map jigsaws take 14 days to deliver. Firebox are asking potential customers to order before Dec 1st, 2004, so as to guarantee delivery for Christmas. They can be ordered on the company website at www.Firebox.com.

It is also worth mentioning another Firebox product - The Times jigsaw. In a similar way to the address jigsaw, Firebox can supply a jigsaw depicting the front page of The Times newspaper. This is a high-quality 400 piece jigsaw puzzle depicting a Times front page of your choice. Simply name your date and Firebox will do the rest. This is an interesting and different gift idea for birthdays. Again, delivery time is 14 days, to UK addresses only.