Windsor woman applies for jigsaw puzzle Guinness World Record
Jodie Desbiens has finished 1,030 jigsaw puzzles, while the world record is 1,028
Jodie Desbiens started out buying a single tiger puzzle about 15 years ago. Then she bought a few more.
She's now completed 1,030 puzzles and she's confident she's done enough to set a Guinness World Record for the biggest collection of completed jigsaw puzzles.
That number is enough for the Windsor, Ont. woman to beat the current record of 1,028 puzzles held by Georgina Gil-Lacuna of Tagaytay City, Phillipines.
Desbiens has done so many puzzles, she has to travel southern Ontario just to find new ones. She combs through thrift stores anywhere between Windsor and Branford
"We've had to go pretty far looking for puzzles," she said. "I'm probably driving my husband crazy."
Piecing it together
Desbien knocks off at least one 1,000-piece puzzle a day, before slapping together a few more smaller 300-piece puzzles.
The challenge of beating a world record didn't start until September 2012. She had finished 150 puzzles and wondered whether a world record for jigsaw puzzles was even recognized by Guinness.
Bored, she checked the Guinness World Record website and, sure enough, it is. At that time, the record was 238 puzzles.
So, Desbiens got to work.
She planned to apply for the world record once she finished 325 puzzles, but between the time she learned of the record of 238 and the time she finished her 325th puzzle, Gil-Lacuna had set a new high-water mark.
Lacuna has been collecting puzzles for 26 years. Her largest puzzle has 18,000 pieces.
"It was kind of discouraging," Desbiens said.
But then she learned more about the rules, realizing that smaller puzzles also counted. Desbien had been piecing together 100-piece puzzles since then. She also learned she could have help putting them together.
Desbiens now needs to have her collection recognized in order to make the record official.
"We have received an application for Jodie. However, it is still awaiting review from our records management team," Guinness World Records North America, Inc. public relations manager Kristen Ott said in an email to CBC. "The current record still stands."