I met Jim Ayer, a wooden jigsaw puzzle maker of J.C Ayer & Co. a few months ago through my son who wanted to stop by his Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle work shop here in Marblehead, Massachusetts. (He has a big wooden jigsaw puzzle piece outside his business as his sign and that attracted us to his business). Since the internet is perfect for niche businesses, this is the perfect niche business and I happen to be an internet marketing consultant.

Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles are not like the typical cardboard puzzles. (Jim gave my son and I a “loaner puzzle,” actually Jim said that back during the depression that puzzle makers used to “rent puzzles” so families could entertain themselves). Here’s what I found out. First off this wooden jigsaw puzzle was very well made. Each piece fit exactly together. In some ways I was wondering how the heck could anyone cut a puzzle so well that there appeared to be no room for the knife? The other thing I noticed was this puzzle was about the size of a 9″ x 12″ envelope but it filled up an entire table when the pieces were not together. The point here is that the the pieces fit so well together they create the illusion that the size of the finished work is 2-3 times the actual. I guess I’ve had this happen more than once in my life where I thought I was going to be doing more work based on first glance at the project, has the same happened with you?

What else was really special about this puzzle is there are special pieces cut out. Jim especially likes the piece he calls “Jane Bond” the girl figure with the gun, see the photo. While many of the special cut out pieces were obvious some of them were not until the puzzle was actually together. For example, there was a three part figure that appeared to be a Radio City Rockette dancing girl. Again there were illusions in the puzzles as there are in life.

What was even more interesting was the fact that this puzzle offered “perspective,” on everything I’m doing and we are doing. As I was building it if I walked away from it for a while and got a glass of water and walked back I was able to put together several more pieces almost magically. As with work if we get too close to it for instance and don’t take a break from it like a vacation our thinking can be distorted or a better word is clouded. I could see the wooden jigsaw puzzle much more clearly if I stepped away.

What is also interesting about this wooden jigsaw puzzle maker is that he can put messages in the wooden jigsaw puzzles like “will you marry me,” or “thanks for the 25 years of great work” if someone is giving the puzzle as a corporate gift. These puzzles can the perfect gift for the person who is hard to buy for.

As in building a puzzle it parallels in life. There is no direct route, sure you can assemble some of the big pieces i.e. education, career, family etc. Each piece requires effort and focus and with some patience and care somehow they all fit together. I also had a little help from my friends Sean Bohan and Chris Peake.