On this page: Box contents - Epoch website - Identifying Epoch puzzles - Special orders
Epoch is a general toy and hobby manufacturer, considerably larger than the other puzzle companies. Their puzzle division still bears the name "Central Hobby," one of a number of puzzle companies they have acquired. For 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 Most important - the pieces
2 Advertising
3 Instructions: how to do the puzzle, or order a catalog (¥1000) from Epoch
4 Missing piece card (details on request)
5 Warning about gluing the puzzle. Avoid spreading the glue in a single direction, because this may make the puzzle stretch slightly so that it won't fit in the standard frame. Check the size as you are applying the glue, using circular strokes, and being careful to avoid uneven distribution.
6 Service card; marked "Available only in Japan"
7 Foil sachet of puzzle glue
8 Sponge for spreading glue
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. Then pour the glue over the front of the puzzle: spread it out with the sponge, so all the joints get neatly filled with glue. It should dry with a nice glossy finish.
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
The Epoch website is fairly easy to view, although it does use enormous pages. Each of the following links should jump to the right point within a page.
Puzzle splash page - Puzzle index - New puzzles
Themes
Art (mostly by artist - nine pages): Yasukawa Shinji - Kuroiwa Toyotaka - Auspicious painting - Mandalas - Haruyo - Peter Motz - Erin Dertner - Sasakura Teppei - Nishino Kentaro - Kirk Reinert - Schim Schimmel - "Wolf art" - Anthony Casay - Muramatsu Makoto - Yoshioka Hideki - Sakurai Yukio - Yamashita Kiyoshi - Takehisa Yumeji - Western classics
Transport: Sailing ships - Modern trains - Battleship Yamato - Aircraft - Steam trains
Characters (two pages): Lupin the third - Galaxy Express 999 - Space Battleship Yamato - Asaki yume mishi: Tale of Genji (Yamato Waki) - Suzumiya Haruhi - The very hungry caterpillar (Eric Carle) - Colobockle (Tachimoto Michiko) - Harry the Dirty Dog (Gene Zion) - Little Black Sambo - Cheburashka -
Pets (two pages): Dogs - Cats - Rabbits
Flowers: Colour therapy - Takako Chiba - Tasha Tudor's garden
Scenic (five pages): Temples - Gardens - Waterfalls - Spring - Autumn - Flowers - Mt. Fuji - Summer - Night views - Flower gardens - World - Tropical resort - Fantastic scene - World heritage
Puzzle varieties
"Super-expert" (very small pieces) - "Expert" (small pieces) - "Mild expert" (smaller puzzles) - "Easy-peasy" (large-piece puzzles) - "Neo Crystal" (translucent puzzles)
By piece count: 300 - 954 panorama - 360 (large) - 500 - 500 (large) - 1000 - 450 (small) - 180 - 108 (large) - 108 - 50 (very large) - 1500 (small) - 2000 - 2016 (very small) - 216 (small)
Icons used on the Epoch site
Piece counts for standard size pieces
Small pieces
Very small pieces
Large pieces
Very large pieces
(Updated June 2007)
Identifying Epoch puzzles
All current Epoch product codes are five digits: 26-030, 06-011, 11-152, 20-109 and so on. The first two digits indicate the price (and usually the number of pieces), but not in an obvious way. When Imaginatorium Shop started there were a number of completely different schemes - for example 1000SN-214F - but now the Imaginatorium Shop item code is simply an 'E' followed by the code omitting the hyphen.
Note: I cannot guarantee the above information about prices, which is simply deduced from the Epoch catalog.
