I really loved this puzzle from Victory, cut design by Mark Cappitella. George Hinke (1883 – 1953) was a mid-20th century illustrator, born in Germany, who did a lot of these Christmas / jolly St. Nick-style illustrations. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry (yet), hmm. (-:
This puzzle by Victory is thick — 7mm — and printed directly on the wood — so it has a very nice feel. 467 pieces is a good number for me. Most delightfully, it is one of their “Artisan” series, with a cut design by Mark Cappitella. It was wonderful. A lot of color-line cutting, as you can see in the whimsies below. But more than the color-line cutting, I really appreciated his cutting style, which has a lot of surprising piece conjunctions. Can I point any out? No, I can not, but multiple times, I would find myself surprised by the way pieces came together.
The puzzle looks pretty cool, in that last assembly picture with everything solved except the tree …. I didn’t deliberately save the tree for last — that was just the last grouping of pieces.
- artist: George Hinke
- makers: Victory Puzzles
- cut design by Mark Cappitella
- features: laser-cut, whimsies, cat whimsies, wooden, 301-499 pieces, color line cutting, printed on wood
- subjects: public domain art, Christmas
- puzzling: LQ, 2025
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