Phil Orbanes heads the AGPI Awards committee.
Outstanding Achievement Awards
The AGPI Outstanding Achievement Award was established in 2018 as our new, singular award, replacing the prior AGPI/AGPC awards: the Spilsbury Award, Bradley-Parker Award, and Sam Loyd Award, which are described below.
Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients
2025 • (to be awarded in October 2025) • Ulrich Schädler, games historian, author, and former curator at Musée Suisse du Jeu
2024 • Rick Tucker, tiddlywinks historian, games historian, cataloguer of games, and avid proponent of digitizing and disseminating game information to the widest audiences possible
2023 • Tom Vasel, Dice Tower podcaster
2022 • Wayne Kirkpatrick, songwriter who performs research on games, games people, and companies for a series of planned documentary films
2021 • (no award due to COVID-19)
2020 • David Beffa-Negrini, wooden jigsaw puzzle cutter and longtime editor of the AGPI Quarterly (award presentation delayed to 2022 due to COVID-19)
2019 • John Ellerbe, games enthusiast and writer
2018 • The Strong National Museum of Play
In 1998, when we were known as the AGPC, we established three awards aligned with the AGPC'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).
These three awards replaced our previous awards that celebrated individuals, no longer living, who had made valuable historical contributions to game and puzzle culture and industry in the distant past: the Abbot Award and the AGCA Hall of Honor Award.
Sam Loyd Awards
The Sam Loyd Award was presented by the AGPC (as we were known as at the time) to a living 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 was named after Sam Loyd, a prolific mechanical puzzle inventor in the late 1800s and early 1900s, who effectively marketed this genre to the public through magazines and newspapers.
Sam Loyd Award Recipients
2015 • Gary Foshee, prolific puzzle designer, 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 (his name at the time of award; he is now known as Kagen Sound), a renowned mechanical puzzle designer and woodcraft craftsman specializing in beautifully hand-crafted secret opening boxes
2006 • Jerry Slocum, distinguished mechanical puzzle collector, historian, and author of a multitude of books about mechanical puzzles
2003 • Nob Yoshigahara, one of the world’s foremost mechanical puzzle designers.
2000 • Stewart Coffin renowned designer of wooden interlocking puzzles, promulgating those designs for others to produce
- Article by Coffin in 2002 Woodworker's Journal
1998 • Bill Ritchie, founder of the company Binary Arts (now ThinkFun), was originally awarded the Abbot Award, which was exchanged for the Sam Loyd Award
Spilsbury Awards
The Spilsbury Award was presented by the AGPC (as we were known at the time) to recognize an entrepreneur who 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, maker of innovative jigsaw puzzles
2001 • Steve Richardson, expert puzzle designer and cutter and founder of Stave Puzzles
Bradley-Parker Awards
This AGPC award was 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 made the Bradley and Parker names recognized throughout the world.
Bradley-Parker Award Recipients
2017 • Dave 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 (in 1985 when we were known as the AGCA)
2005 - Francis Spear, the last generation of Spears to run the famous J. W. Spear & Sons Company
2005 - Victor Watson, Chief Executive Officer of Waddingtons Games
