George Luck (1943–) and Kay Luck (1943–), husband and wife, trading as George Luck Ltd, have a long history in operating as a children's jigsaw puzzle business, from 1974. The business can be described as of a substantial worldwide nature, with ventures in the UK, Germany, New Zealand and Japan, and can be described as a household name in children’s puzzles. There are about five hundred designs, albeit only a relatively few (eight) involve cluster puzzles. Indeed, the brand name continues to this day, although they themselves are no longer actively involved, having retired, emigrating from the UK to New Zealand in 2005, and sold the brand and copyright to the German company Hape, the world’s largest producer of wooden toys, in 2013. The puzzles are marketed on a wide variety of educational and children’s jigsaw puzzle websites worldwide. Plywood is the exclusive medium and cut using fine blades. On occasions, the boundaries are blurred as to cluster puzzle intention.

One puzzle sometimes associated with them is a Noah’s Ark, and indeed, is marketed under their name. However, this more exactly is by Phillip Gell, of whom they were once associated. As a clear distinction is made, I thus omit this instance.

As a general observation, the various cluster puzzles are not discussed in any great detail on any commercial outlet, in print or online, and so it is not an easy task to document. The sole focus is (not unexpectedly) on marketing. Indeed, the same lack of detail also applies to puzzle pages in general. An obvious beginning is to investigate their website. However, the website is now of this writing (2020) defunct. Previously (2016?) it was merely a legacy page, with minimal background details (a single page), stating that he has been making jigsaw puzzles for nearly forty years, and of which recently (2013) he has retired; no other detail of note or contact is given. However, upon making a more determined attempt to find him than previously, I eventually succeeded, in January 2017. Pleasingly, I found him, and Kay, expansive to a series of questions and queries, and of which the story can, to a large extent, now be told, and of which I show excerpted details below.

Of their work as regards cluster puzzles, these are pleasingly themed, with eight unambiguous examples, of a country, continent or world theme, with native animals of the UK, Australia, Africa, China, North America, New Zealand, and the world. There is also another of a different premise, Amazing Animal Alphabet of 26 animals, with an animal for each letter of the alphabet. As a rule, these are quite good, albeit with the occasional inevitable contrived motif, with all the advantages (and difficulties thereof, and so more worthy of praise than of a more arbitrary collection, all things being equal) of a cohesive theme. World is very good, of which this shows the continents with what appears to be their respective native animals. As a simple description, the individual creatures can be described as simplified with minimal detail, of relatively high quality, of the higher standard, of true interlocking, of type A. In addition to the above, there is also another puzzle that can be considered as cluster puzzle in nature, Tree of Life, albeit in both subject matter and style is noticeably different, without such strict regard as to the tessellation principle. As an aside, country and continent themes can also be seen in the work of Ilaria Logi (Australia), Adam Laurance (Australia), and Anthony Prischl and Paul Gibbs (Africa and US) although likely the Lucks works precede all these save for possibly the Logis, but all are independent of each other.

For the purchaser or the would-be collector, obtaining the puzzles is not a straightforward task as may otherwise be thought. In short, they are not marketed separately but rather included in Hape general range of Luck puzzles. And even then, there appear to be periods when they are unavailable. The same situation arises on eBay. In short, as of this writing, there are 325 results. It is tedious indeed to search through this to find, by chance, any of the cluster puzzles, and all without the guarantee of success. Be all as it may, the Amazing Animal Alphabet is more easily available for a general £30. A search on the term soon shows stockists.

Given the lack of background detail, in the course of our correspondence, I asked the Lucks a series of detailed questions. Their replies were most illuminating, with much now previous uncertainty determined. Below I have assembled the more interesting comments, with minor omissions and editing in places for the sake of a better read. All dates are of 2017.

DB 29 January (airmail letter)

Were these (the concept) an independent innovation, or were you previously familiar with the genre, from Escher perhaps, or the famed Italian designer Enzo Mari?

GL 29 January (email) This is the first time we have heard of "cluster puzzles". Tomorrow we will email you with a few more details and answers to your questions.

KL 30 January

Re Philip Gell

He worked as a graphic designer and the Ark was a hobby that took him three years in his spare time.

We haven't heard from him for several years…

Re Escher

We'd done a couple of small designs, one of interlocking birds and another of fish and were showing them at a trade fair when this name was first mentioned. We'd never heard of him before.

Re Map puzzles

The idea of fitting animals into the map of Australia came from our Japanese distributor when we met at Nuremberg Fair.

Re Logi and Plathy

We didn't know of their work at all. It is extremely beautiful.

DB 30 January questions, KL answered 1 February

DB Have any of your cluster puzzles appeared in print? If so, could you tell me the publication and date?

KL The map puzzles have appeared in many catalogues and websites and were also in trade shows every year in London, Birmingham and Nuremberg. Luckily the map puzzles have never been copied exactly, unlike other designs of ours. The GB and Ireland map is pictured in the Tom Tyler book.

The GB puzzle is a favourite of mine. Tom's is the only hard cover book that we know of.

DB. The ‘revelation’ as to the map puzzles with ‘Japanese distributor’ is most interesting in many ways. In a sense, is he responsible for ‘all’ here? I.e. did he give you the idea, from which you then expanded from Australia to other countries?

KL. The map idea was just a quick scribble on the back of an envelope by the Japanese distributor. Having produced the first one (which he liked) it made sense to do a series to get more sales from his company. They remained loyal customers for many years. Leismann, our German distributor at the time, also loved the style and quality of these. Both these nations have a tradition of top quality traditional toys.

DB. Have any of the preliminary drawings survived? And if so, can I see one or two (or as many as you are comfortable sending)? To me, it is always interesting as to the design procedure; people have different methods.

KL. I have the line drawings of all the map puzzles. I could send an image of the pencil drawing of the GB with scribbles round the outside, although it is rather grey in tones, more than b/w and might not make a sharp image.

DB. I’m still a little unclear as to the designer. My interpretation is that Kay did the actual cluster puzzle designs, and you then did the cutting of the puzzles? Or was it a more or less equal collaboration of design and cutting wise?

KL. I did most of the design work. It was easier this way as I could be in the house with the children when they were small. George is also artistic and gave helpful advice and guidance on subject matter, colour schemes and so on. We also tested the design ideas on our employees to get a reaction.

When designing the map puzzles I would make a list of the indigenous and perhaps farm animals in order of importance. I would choose several large flowing animal shapes to make [an] impact and place them strategically, with regard to their colour. Others would be gradually fitted around these after I had sketched them in different positions. I had to consider the sequence in which the animals would be cut so that there was some flow to the cutting process as well as the lines of the design. Certain shapes had to be avoided as small children are good at testing the breaking point of puzzle pieces, particularly anything U shaped!

Re cutting the map puzzle designs: at this stage we had trained about ten folk as cutters on our electric fretsaw machines. We could cut four puzzles at a time as they were taped together with the design printed on card and taped to the top. It was extremely skilled work as one false move or badly broken blade could ruin a lot of work. There were only a few of our cutters who were practiced enough to do this work. It was very, very rare that George or I cut the map puzzles as we were too busy involved in other aspects of the business. Only one or two could cut the Ark, as the lines were so straight.

It is much easier to cut complicated puzzles by laser hence the proliferation of some of the new designs you've mentioned.

DB. Thanks for the details on Phillip Gell. I have previously had a look for him to no avail. Can you add to what you have told me as to your interaction: did he approach you, or vice versa, and the circumstances thereof?

KL. He approached us with the Ark puzzle and did a few other children's puzzles for us. The Ark was popular as a high-end example of our work. The others also were very clever designs but did not produce great sales as they tended to be more expensive to produce and didn't feature animals.

We had a simple rule that to make a children's puzzle a success it needed an animal that should be familiar, friendly, furry/fluffy, funny.

Philip was trained in graphic design and was quietly amused by our early and naive attempts at design.

From this, it can be seen that the concept was of their own innovation, as has frequently happened with other designers.

Each puzzle in detail

Australia, 1992, 33 pieces