Archive-photo jigsaw puzzles: a cheap weekly post, measured honestly

Harvested 31 Oct 2026 (~02:20Z). Not in INDEX.md before ('jigsaw' and 'puzzle' 0 hits). The nearest file, academy-spoiler-free-result-share-daily-question.md, is about a daily quiz with a share grid. This one is image puzzles made from records we hold.

Evidence (read 31 Oct 2026)

• Barnsley Museums / The Cooper Gallery: the longest-running UK example I found.
• BBC News, 5 Apr 2020 (read): a daily online puzzle from its ~400-work collection, posted on social media. People from as far away as Brazil competed for the fastest time; one solver took "little more than four minutes".
• Yorkshire Post, 10 Apr 2020 (read): the other four Barnsley Museums sites joined in using local buildings and photographs, with plans for competitions.
• The programme is still running in 2026 (profile read live). Its Jigsaw Planet albums include National Puzzle Day 2026, World Photography Day 2026, Bonus Puzzles in 2026, an Advent Calendar, 12 Days of Christmas and Brew Monday, plus "5 Years of Museum Jigsaws - Thank you!". Puzzles are tagged "potw" (puzzle of the week, 37 tagged).
• Real reach, counted by me from the puzzle pages ("Played: N"), 31 Oct 2026, the 15 newest Barnsley puzzles: 5, 11, 42, 43, 65, 71, 71, 74, 75, 85, 86, 89, 91, 92, 114 plays. Median 74. Older puzzles have had longer to collect plays. So even a council museum service with years of habit gets tens of plays per puzzle, not thousands. The 2020 lockdown attention has gone.
• Many other collections run the same thing, e.g. Ventura County Museum (55+ puzzles), Smithsonian Libraries (seasonal editions; page blocked our fetch), Ashmolean (cited in Wessex Museums' 2020 digital exhibitions report), Museums Victoria and university special collections (all from search previews, not checked).
• Platform facts (read):
• Jigsaw Planet is free. Every public puzzle can be shared or embedded on websites (FAQ). Each puzzle page shows its play count and a best-times table, which gives the "beat our time" hook.
• Its terms give the platform a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free licence to any image you upload, for running its services. The pages also carry ads.
• Self-hosted option: headbreaker (npm 3.0.0, ISC licence, ~117 KB unpacked, "Jigsaw puzzles library for js", github.com). It runs on our own page with no ads and no licence grant. Not installed (disk 0.58 GB free; root said install nothing).

Honest verdict

A jigsaw is cheap, friendly, repeatable content. It gives a weekly post something to do, and every solver spends minutes looking closely at one record. Expect tens of plays, not reach. Use it for retention and warmth (newsletter, Facebook page regulars, Academy members), never as a growth bet. Barnsley kept it going because it costs almost nothing per week.

Playbook

1. Images: only ones we own the copyright to, or clearly public domain with the source line. That matters doubly on Jigsaw Planet because of its licence grant. Good picks: maps, plans, building photos, documents with strong shapes. No faces of living people, and nothing showing family holdings or addresses.
2. Difficulty: offer the default and let people change the piece count (both platforms allow it). Square crops of about 1920 px work (Barnsley's are 1920x1920, 8x8).
3. Cadence: one "puzzle of the week" on the same weekday, titled with the record's date and catalogue ID. Seasonal albums at most (Advent, National Puzzle Day in late January; exact date not checked).
4. Hook text: one line of what the record is, then "Can you beat X min?" Give the link to our own record page first and the puzzle second, so the click that counts lands on Cedwyn.
5. Embed vs link: a link is fine for social posts. On our own site, use self-hosted headbreaker on the record page once there is disk, so there are no third-party ads and no licence grant. Never put an iframe in email (clients block it). Use a still image linking to the puzzle page.
6. Measure: plays from the platform counter plus tagged clicks (utm_campaign=puzzle) to the record page. Keep going only if puzzle posts beat our median post on clicks to Cedwyn over 6 weeks. Otherwise stop. No sunk cost.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

• Pilot: 6 weekly puzzles from catalogue images we own (maps, plans, building photos), each titled " · ". Post them on the Facebook page Great House Farm II and in the Academy, with the record page linked first.
• Hosting (decided from the evidence, not asked): on Jigsaw Planet, upload only public-domain images (pre-1900 maps or plans with source lines), so the licence grant gives away nothing we own. Our own copyright photos wait for a self-hosted headbreaker page on /research/ once disk is above 2 GB.
• Email: in the monthly newsletter, a still image with "Puzzle of the month: beat 4 minutes" linking to the record page and then the puzzle. Mailchimp draft only.
• Stop rule: under the median post's clicks to Cedwyn after 6 puzzles = stop and log the lesson.
• Editorial rules: never name the project lead; banned words (states, assertions, per, second-hand report, not checked, reported, deception, taken); no insignia; nothing about family holdings or addresses; Llandough Farm images are not Great House Farm.

Sources

• bbc.com (read)
• yorkshirepost.co.uk (read)
• jigsawplanet.com and its 15 newest puzzle pages (read 31 Oct 2026; play counts counted by me)
• jigsawplanet.com and jigsawplanet.com (read)
• registry.npmjs.org (read: 3.0.0, ISC, 116,914 bytes unpacked)
• venturamuseum.org ; wessexmuseums.org.uk (search previews only, not checked)

Raw Markdown: archive-photo-jigsaw-puzzles-weekly-post.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json