News Articles
Par Puzzles - When Par Meant Excellence
Copyright 2003 by Anne D. Williams reprinted by permission
For questions or comments about the history of Par and other jigsaw puzzles,
contact Anne Williams at: puzzles@bates.edu
Par Puzzles... The name brings fond memories to old time puzzlers, and regrets to those who never had a chance to do one of these magnificent hand-cut mahogany puzzles. As every connoisseur of fine wood puzzles knows, Par dominated the luxury market for more than forty years, until the last of the original founders retired in 1974.
John Henriques and Frank Ware began cutting puzzles in the depths of the Great Depression. They were both unemployed at the time and hoped to earn some cash until they could find jobs again. Neither dreamed then that puzzles would become their life's work, but by the mid-thirties they were established in a New York City penthouse, turning out quality products for a growing list of celebrities.
According to Frank Ware, the secret of Par's outstanding success was quality. As puzzles gained popularity in the Depression, many makers cut corners in their production techniques in order to build a mass market. Par consciously chose the opposite strategy. They aimed at the carriage trade, and through the years continued to upgrade their materials and techniques.
Although Ware and Henriques were always secretive about their craftsmanship, they were quite happy to boast about their materials. They imported many of their prints from Europe, particularly impressionist masterpieces and brilliant travel posters.. Their mahogany plywood was custom made to their specifications. At one point when their plywood supplier was unable to obtain any mahogany, they even bought logs directly from Honduras. (A customer in the diplomatic corps helped the partners with the importing arrangements in order to minimize delays in receiving his next puzzle.) Their precision blades (seven-thousandths of an inch thick) came from Germany. And they commissioned chemists to develop a special formula for the glue they used.
In addition to using fine materials, Ware and Henriques brought exceptional artistry to their puzzles. Each puzzle contained many special figure pieces designed by Frank Ware, always including the Par seahorse. (In their first few years they used Kipling's backwards swastika for a trademark piece; but when the swastika fell into disrepute, they replaced it with the seahorse, one of their customers' favorite pieces.) They specialized in tricks to fool the puzzle devotee: fake corners, dropouts within the puzzle, and irregular edges. The latter trick was instituted to make a virtue out of necessity, when a wire-haired terrier chewed up the edge of a puzzle they were working on. Finally, they would happily customize puzzles by cutting names, dates and monograms as special pieces.
Unlike today's puzzles, Par puzzles were packaged in plain black boxes with no key pictures to aid the puzzler. Instead, labels just specified the title (usually misleading) and the "par time," a constant source of frustration to their clients. Par time was how long it took Henriques, who was a very fast puzzler, to complete the puzzle. On Par's largest puzzle of 10,000 pieces, however, Henriques did not have the time to put it together; so they just set par at "days and nights." Occasionally a client would challenge the par time, arguing that no one could possibly put the puzzle together so quickly. Henriques won a fair amount of money by betting customers that he could indeed make par on their own puzzles, and even on other brands.
From the beginning Par developed a sophisticated and affluent clientele, including notables in the theater, publishing, politics and industry. They made puzzles for Vanderbilts, du Ponts, Fords and Astors, as well as Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlene Dietrich, to name a few. In the literary world they supplied editors of Harpers and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Some of these clients insisted on shipments in unmarked boxes, to hide their enjoyment of puzzles from their intellectual colleagues.
Perhaps their most famous client was the Duke of Windsor who insisted that each of his puzzles have cut into it "H. R. H.," the Windsor crest, and silhouettes of his four cairn terriers. Puzzles for his wife always contained the intitials "W. W.," patterned after her signature.
Most of Par's illustrious customers preferred not to be discussed. So Par opened up their files only once, to the F.B.I. and the British Intelligence Service. During World War II spies were apparently using hollowed out wooden puzzle pieces to send secret messages. Par was exonerated, however. Undoubtedly the spies could not afford Par's premium prices and had to use lesser quality puzzles for their communications!
Par's popularity was not limited to the rich and famous. Ware and Henriques had begun by renting their puzzles out by the week, and they continued this service for years. One woman rented 90 puzzles a year for over a decade without ever losing a piece. Other regular customers included lighthouse keepers and many New Englanders who had a long puzzling tradition. Eventually the partners abandoned the rental service, as it was too time consuming to check for missing pieces after each rental. In the 1960s they sold the rental puzzles at a fraction of their regular prices (which then ranged from $75 to $2,000).
Both Henriques and Ware cherished their independence. They did all their own selling, instead of going through retailers. In the occasional case where they did not get along with a customer, they would simply cut off all dealings with the person. Henriques once even threw a particularly objectionable customer's money down the stairs after him.) They would cut almost anything as a special puzzle, from Christmas cards for Alexander Woollcott to a Picasso print as a gift for Picasso. They did draw the line at hard core pornography, although they were known to cut up some Playboy centerfolds on occasion. They enjoyed fooling their customers. Basically they had a great time trying to entertain people and answering only to themselves.
Henriques died in 1972, and when Ware retired in 1974, the Manhattan operation was shut down. He turned over the saws, raw materials and customer list to Arthur Gallagher, a long-time assistant. Gallagher continued to make Par puzzles on Long Island, but after a few years he too retired. Today John Madden, who learned the art of puzzle cutting from Gallagher, continues the Par tradition in Wantagh, New York.