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Over the years our awards have evolved to become aligned with our major mission areas:  games, jigsaw puzzles, and mechanical puzzles. We now have three awards:  the Sam Loyd Award, the Spilsbury Award, and the Bradley-Parker Award.

Phil Orbanes leads the AGPI Awards committee. 

Sam Loyd Award

The Sam Loyd Award is given to an individual who, as an entrepreneur, has been responsible for the promotion of 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

1998 - Bill Ritchie, founder, Binary Arts (now ThinkFun)

2000 - Stewart Coffin, designer, wooden interlocking puzzles

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

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

2009 - Kagen Schaefer, award-winning mechanical puzzle designer specializing in beautifully hand-crafted secret opening boxes.

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

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

Spilsbury Award

The Spilsbury Award recognizes 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bradley-Parker Award

Lithographer Milton Bradley, who started his company in 1860, and game inventor George S. Parker, who went into business in 1883, 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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