Six Corner Pieces

Now that the seasons are changing and we are slipping toward winter and more time indoors, it’s time for me to work on jigsaw puzzles. Yesterday, I started sorting pieces for one. Every piece of the 1000-piece puzzle is uniquely shaped. Some are shaped like animals, fruit, or other familiar objects.

As always, I first try to sort out the edge and corner pieces as an assembly strategy. I quickly bumped into a weird problem: I found six of the four corner pieces I need.

I think we can all agree that a rectangular puzzle has only four right-angle corner pieces. Finding six of them rather stopped me in my tracks. Naturally, I consulted the picture of the puzzle and quickly identified four rightful corner pieces. Not long after, I found where the other two pieces will land as run-of-the-mill edge pieces.

I am sharing a photograph of the six corner pieces and another showing where the two oddball corners will be placed. I think we may be in for a wild ride on this puzzle.

Six Corner Pieces

Two Not-So Corner Pieces

—Mitchell Hegman