Type Private Area served Worldwide Founded 2005 | Headquarters Boulder, Colorado Products Wooden jigsaw puzzles | |
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Website www.libertypuzzles.com US & Worldwide website Founders Jeffrey Eldridge, Christopher Wirth | ||
Liberty puzzles by elizabeth lock
Liberty Puzzles is a manufacturer of classic style wooden jigsaw puzzles based in Boulder, Colorado. It was founded in 2005 by Christopher Wirth and his business partner Jeffrey Eldridge, after Wirth’s family inherited several hand-cut wooden puzzles from the 1930s. Surprised by the value of hand-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles (which can sell for more than $1,000 each), Wirth decided to start a business using modern cutting technologies, with a goal of producing puzzles in the $100 range. Wirth is the son of former Colorado senator Tim Wirth.
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Liberty Puzzles is the largest or second largest wooden jigsaw puzzle manufacturer in America as of 2011. The company offers over 600 different puzzle images, with an emphasis on fine art, vintage prints and Asian art. They continuously expand their range, increasingly with local contemporary artists.
The puzzles are made in Boulder, Colorado with archival paper and inks adhered to quarter-inch maple plywood cut with computer-controlled laser cutters. The puzzle designs are modeled after the puzzles popular in the early-twentieth century. Jigsaw puzzle historian Bob Armstrong notes: "the style of cutting and figure pieces emulates the Falls puzzles from the 1930s". Liberty's puzzles include a relatively large number of whimsy pieces (pieces shaped recognizably, for example, as storks or swans), "as much as 20 percent of the pieces... [in some puzzles]". Most Liberty Puzzles include the company's signature whimsy piece in the shape of an eagle.