In 1998, we established three awards to become 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).
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) [originally awarded the Abbot Award, which was exchanged for the Loyd Award]
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, enigmatologist, 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
Outstanding Achievement Award
In 2018, the Spilsbury, Bradley-Parker, and Sam Loyd Awards were retired and replaced with one award: the AGPI Outstanding Achievement Award.
Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients
2018 - The Strong National Museum of Play
2019 - John Ellerbe, games enthusiast and writer
2020 - David Beffa-Negrini, puzzle cutter and editor of the AGPI Quarterly (award presentation postponed due to COVID)
2021 - (no award due to COVID)
2022 - Wayne Kirkpatrick, songwriter researching games people and companies for a set of documentaries films
2023 - Tom Vasel, Dice Tower podcaster
2024 - Rick Tucker, games historian
2025 - Ulrich Schädler, games historian, author, and former curator of Musée Suisse du Jeu
