Epoch puzzles

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

Epoch website update

Sorry! The Epoch website has been updated, and all of the original links in our guide are broken. Until I can repair this properly, I'll leave the English titles as a guide - but many of the links may not work properly, or at all.

The Epoch website is fairly easy to view, although it does use enormous pages. Each of the links below should jump to the right point within a page.

Puzzle intro page - now leads to separate index pages for each genre... New puzzles

Expert and graded puzzles

Graded puzzles - Ultra-expert - Super-expert - Expert - Want-to-be-expert - Slightly expert - Expert panorama format

Art (eight pages)

Yasukawa Shinji - Kuroiwa Toyotaka - Auspicious painting - Harai Kayomi - Mandalas - Morita Haruyo - Kimura Keigo - Nakajima Chinami - Yoshida Keiji - Oda Yoshio - Peter Motz - Mari - Sasakura Teppei - Kentaro Nishino - Wildlife - Fairies - Yamashita Kiyoshi - Western classics - Woodblock prints (Ukiyo-e masterpieces)

Maps

Nature

Bugs - Dinosaurs

Characters (two pages)

Suzumiya - Lucky Star - Red Cliffs - Devil Kings (known in Japan as Sengoku Basara) - The very hungry caterpillar (Eric Carle) - Colobockle (Tachimoto Michiko)

Personalities

Saotome Taichi (female impersonation actor)

Icons used on the Epoch site

500 pieces 1000 pieces 2000 pieces Piece counts for standard size pieces

216 small pieces 450 small pieces 1500 small pieces Small pieces

2016 very small pieces Very small pieces

108 large pieces Large pieces

50 very large pieces Very large pieces

(Updated June 2009)

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.

Epoch