Godzilla Giant Jigsaw Puzzle [Tricepahlon] Artwork Poster (HG Toys, 1978)

 

This fascinating item recently came to the surface, and arrived a couple of days ago!  This piece contains the entire painting for what we should refer to as the "Tricephalon Puzzle" for clarity (even though it's actually called the 100 GIANT PIECE JIGSAW PUZZLE on its own box).  The main part of this artwork was also used for the mighty GODZILLA BATTLES THE TRICEPHALON MONSTER playset the following year.  It is oddly-sized, and measures 37 by 15.5 inches.  It's printed on the same semi-glossy stock that you would expect for vintage posters, and came rolled.

The lower border of the artwork extends a little farther than it does on the completed puzzle, and because of this, an additional number can be seen on the painting.

Since you've already seen the goods at this point, let's examine the possibilities of why this exists! There are a few theories:

1) This is a store display.  This is one of the places my mind always goes to with items of unknown origin, and sellers do that too. (By the way, I did try to ask for further information from the seller, but all I learned was that they were selling the item on consignment for a third party, who obtained it from an estate sale.)  I think we can safely rule "display" out, though, especially because of the lack of any information whatsoever on the actual piece.  Even the jigsaw puzzle itself had a banner across the middle telling you it was a Godzilla product.  I would think if a store display had existed for this (very rare) puzzle, then it would've looked more like the box:

2) This is a retail poster.  There are two ways this could've played out.  First, if it were a poster that was simply sold as a poster, it would've been in dealer catalogs with other HG Toys, and collectors would definitely know of its existence.  The second possibility is a little more remote.  A year after HG produced their smaller Godzilla puzzles, they took their extra stock and offered a complete boxed gift set of all three, which can be seen below:

This gift box included posters of the artwork of all three puzzles, rolled together in a smaller box.  (It's important to point out that these were a more 11 x 14 inches.)  Was it possible that HG sold a "gift set" version of this puzzle as well, that included a poster? If that was the case, then no order forms or documentation has ever surfaced.  Also, the poster we are discussing is a little unwieldy to be used as a guide for working a puzzle.  It's really too big to work very well for that.  Which leads us to:

3) This is production/internal art.  We have eliminated the others, and are left with the theory that makes the most sense.  I don't know if this means anything (and someone with more knowledge of old-school printing may want to add to this point in the comments, of course), but there seem to be more printer's marks and guides on the borders of this, than on your average poster.

Again, it may not be significant, but it seems to indicate "rough draft" to me (if it helps, the small posters in the gift box are trimmed, and borderless).  We do know that HG issued "salesman's samples" to show to potential retail customers (a kind soul shared his prototype of the Tricephalon puzzle with us way back--ten years ago now--which you can see at the post covering that item), and it makes sense that something similar would have been done with this stunning painting to do just that.  Or, at the very least, for interested employees to take home...wouldn't you have done the same thing, in that position? I would've.  All day long.

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One footnote about this painting.  I think I mentioned this years ago in other posts, but what always strikes me is that it shows two completely separate scenes.  The Tricephalon has three heads (as...the name implies).  Here is the figure itself:

And yet, a fourth head is popping up at the bottom of the image, menacing the crowd. The banner on the box provides a natural split between the two halves of the image, but the first time I ever completed the puzzle, I was quite surprised.  It's the sort of thing you see in vintage comic covers.  Either way, it certainly maximized the space in the artwork, and saves the puzzle-worker from boring crowd and wall scenery!