On this page: Box contents - Artbox website - Identifying Artbox puzzles - Special orders
The Artbox brand is manufactured by the Amada Printing Manufacturing Company; from mid-2005 the marketing operation has been split off as a separate company called Ensky. For historical notes and some more details, see the manufacturers page.
Box contents
In days gone by you opened a jigsaw puzzle box, and inside were just the pieces! But Japanese puzzles come with various extra bits and pieces. The assumption is that you will only do the puzzle once, then glue it together for wall mounting, to impress your friends.
1 Pieces
2 Missing piece postcard (Details on request)
3 Sachet of jigsaw puzzle glue (principal ingredient polyvinyl alcohol - PVA)
4 "Mystery object" (glue spreader)
Doing the puzzle
Ignore the strict instructions to do the edge pieces first: put the bits together in any order you like. If you want to display the puzzle, you can use the glue to stick it together. Spread a sheet of clean but unwanted paper under the completed puzzle, with the puzzle the right way up. (Some people say it's best to do this on a sheet of glass, which the puzzle won't stick to.) Then pour the glue over the front of the puzzle: spread it out carefully with the mystery object, so all the joints get neatly filled with glue. It should dry with a nice glossy finish. It is a good idea to practice on a small puzzle before you try this on a really large one.
Disclaimer: I have very limited experience of gluing puzzles - I usually break them up to do again some day. But I have had some success with trompe l'oeil murals!
Please note: Actual box contents may vary slightly - if you find any major discrepancies, please let us know.
Website
Unfortunately, the Artbox website is designed not to be viewable unless you can navigate in Japanese, and not to be bookmarked. If you want to try, the index page is here:
http://www.ensky.co.jp/
Identifying Artbox puzzles
The Artbox product codes all start with the piece count, then a hyphen, then a code number: e.g., 1000-29 is a 1000-piece puzzle. Imaginatorium Shop item codes for Artbox all begin with 'N' (for "Ensky", as none of the letters in 'Artbox' was available!) followed by a condensed version, with the first two digits indicating the number of pieces. So the above is N1029, then N03xxx means 300 pieces, N20yyy means 2000 pieces, N95zzz means 950 pieces, and so on.
