Outstanding Achievement Awards

The AGPI Outstanding Achievement Award was established in 2018 as a single award to replace the following prior AGPI awards: the Spilsbury Award, Bradley-Parker Award, and Sam Loyd Award.

Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients

2025 - Ulrich Schädler, games historian, author, and former curator of Musée Suisse du Jeu

2024 - Rick Tucker, tiddlywinks historian and overall games historian

2023 - Tom Vasel, Dice Tower podcaster

2022 - Wayne Kirkpatrick, songwriter who performs research on games, games people, and companies for a series of documentary films

2021 - (no award due to COVID)

2020 - David Beffa-Negrini, puzzle cutter and editor of the AGPI Quarterly (award presentation delayed due to COVID)

2019 - John Ellerbe, games enthusiast and writer

2018 - The Strong National Museum of Play

In 1998, we established three awards aligned with the AGPI's major mission areas:  games, jigsaw puzzles, and mechanical puzzles:  the Sam Loyd Award (mechanical puzzles), the Spilsbury Award (jigsaw puzzles), and the Bradley-Parker Award (games).

Sam Loyd Awards

The Sam Loyd Award was presented to an individual who, as an entrepreneur, had been responsible for  promoting interest in mechanical puzzles, through the design, development, manufacture, and/or distribution of mechanical puzzles. This award is named after Sam Loyd, a prolific mechanical puzzle inventor in the late 1800s and early 1900s, who brought this genre to the attention of the public through magazines and newspapers.

Sam Loyd Award Recipients

2015 - Gary Foshee, prolific designer, puzzle collector, and recreational mathematician

2012 - Will Shortz, enigmatologist, New York Times crossword puzzle editor and collector and historian of all types of puzzles

2009 - Kagen Schaefer (now known as Kagen Sound) award-winning mechanical puzzle designer specializing in beautifully hand-crafted secret opening boxes

2006 - Jerry Slocum, distinguished mechanical puzzle collector, historian, and author

2003 - Nob Yoshigahara, one of the world’s foremost mechanical puzzle designers

2000 - Stewart Coffin, designer, wooden interlocking puzzles

1998 - Bill Ritchie, founder of the company Binary Arts (now ThinkFun), who was originally awarded the Abbot Award, which was exchanged for the Loyd Award

Spilsbury Awards

The Spilsbury Award recognized an entrepreneur who has made a significant contribution to the jigsaw puzzle field, either through the design, manufacture, or promotion of jigsaw puzzles.The award is named after John Spilsbury, an English mapmaker, who cut and sold “dissected map” puzzles in the 1760s.  His work as an early manufacturer of jigsaw puzzles is well documented, and he is widely credited with their initial commercial development.

Spilsbury Award Recipients

2016 - Geert Bekkering, noted historian of Dutch, German, and other European jigsaw puzzles.

2013 - Bob Armstrong, jigsaw puzzle restorer and developer of influential website on puzzles

2010 - Tom Tyler, renowned historian of British jigsaw puzzles and founder of the Benevolent Confraternity of Dissectologists

2007 - Anne Williams, jigsaw puzzle historian and one of the world’s foremost experts on jigsaw puzzles

2004 - Katie & Bob Lewin, founders of Springbok Editions in 1964, producing innovative jigsaw puzzles

2001 - Steve Richardson, expert puzzle designer and cutter and founder of Stave Puzzles

Bradley-Parker Awards

This award is named after lithographer Milton Bradley, who started his company in 1860, and game inventor George S. Parker, who went into business in 1883; both were among the greatest entrepreneurs in the game industry.  Bradley is credited with the first large-scale mass-marketing of games, and Parker with the mass production of games that appealed to adults as well as children, and their legacy has made the Bradley and Parker names recognized throughout the world.

Bradley-Parker Award Recipients

2017 - E. David Wilson, former Vice President of Sales at Parker Brothers and President of the Games Division of Hasbro

2014 - Ranny Barton, grandson of George S. Parker and former President of Parker Brothers

2014 - Phil Orbanes, board game designer and author, former Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Parker Brothers, and founder of Winning Moves Games

2011 - Herb Levy, President of Gamers Alliance, an international gaming network

2008 - Bruce Whitehill, writer, game designer, game historian and speaker; founder of the AGPI

2005 - Francis Spear, the last generation of Spears to run the famous J. W. Spear & Sons Company

2005 - Victor Watson, Chief Executive Officer of Waddington’s Games