Ravensburger AG is a German game and toy company, publishing house and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market. History The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named Journey Around the World. At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, art instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families, and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia. Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture, and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977, the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm. Today there are approximately 1800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products, and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and F.X. Schmid for games, playing cards and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries. Under the label F.X. Schmid, Ravensburger produces one of the only two packs of true Tarock cards in Germany: a 54-card pack of the Bourgeois Tarot pattern with genre scenes and used for playing the game of Cego, popular in the Black Forest region. In September 2010, Ravensburger broke the world record for the largest jigsaw puzzle, with one designed by late pop artist Keith Haring titled "Keith Haring: Double Retrospect". Built from 32,256 pieces, it measured 17' × 6' (5.18 m x 1.82 m) and came with a hand truck for transportation. Ravensburger has since