New Arrivals

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I’m trying to buy less puzzles this year (last year I again bought many more puzzles than I completed), but some puzzles are impossible to resist:

Yes, you are reading that correctly, a wooden Ravenburger puzzle! It’s manufactured in Poland, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be very similar to the Trefl wooden puzzles. It’s interesting that some brands known for cardboard puzzles are looking to get in on the wooden puzzle market.

The mushrooms I’ve had my eye on for some time now. It was really more than I like to pay for a 1000-piece puzzle (22 EUR), but since the price just won’t come down, I finally caved.

Ulysses and the Sirens, In Progress

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I’ve been working on this 2000-piece puzzle for almost two weeks, and it’s not going that well. In fact, I almost certainly won’t be able to finish before I leave for Helsinki in a week, so it will probably have to wait until July. (One reason that it’s taking so long is that I’ve been playing a lot of computer games lately.) The image is a scene from Greek mythology by John William Waterhouse, and the pieces that are left are mostly shades of grey and brown. This is my first 2000-piece D-Toys puzzle, and it’s likely to be my last. I already knew that the fit can be ambiguous, but I think this is worse than the 1000-piece puzzles I’ve done before.

Fun Park Trip, 2023-05-16

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This was my second puzzle with an image by Swedish artist Anders Lyon, and while I enjoyed it, I liked Cruise a lot more. I started with the sky and the water, but after that I kept putting in pieces here and there.

Fun Park Trip by Anders Lyon, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 16, 2023.

Loved the rollercoasters:

The police are following a car with a chest of money on the roof:

[Life Magazine Covers], 2023-05-14

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This turned out to be even more fun than expected, I thought having the same word (“LIFE”) in the same font and colours over and over would be annoying, but it really wasn’t. Also, the background red is not always the same, there were variations, but even so, this was a rare case where I didn’t try to do the text first.

There is no title on the box, but all of the images are covers of Life magazine from the 1930s to the 1960s.

[Life Magazine Covers], Clementoni, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 14, 2023.

Here are some of my favourites:

I loved all of the space themed images (as usual), and the virus was so much fun (as a puzzle!). I was also surprised how much I liked the images with large crowds of people (it says Dodger rookies on this one).

Great puzzle!

Hampton Court, 2023-05-07

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Hampton Court is a Royal Palace in the southwest of London, originally built in the 16th Century, althoug some parts were added in the 18th Century. The castle was a favourite of Henry VIII. No royals currently live there, and it’s open to the public.

As a puzzle, it was very entertaining and fairly easy. It seems to be part of a series called Historic Royal Palaces, but I’ve never seen another puzzle in the series, unfortunately.

Hampton Court, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 7, 2023.

The astronomical clock was my favourite part:

Popeda, kaasua…, 2023-05-06

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This is the cover of a 1983 album called “kaasua…” (“gas”) by Finnish band Popeda. It’s part of the Tactic Rock Legends series, where you get a 300-piece puzzle of the original album cover, as well as a CD with the album.

I had this album as an LP back in the day, and as it happens, the title track was played last week at our Mayday-celebration in the library. Still liked it 🤘

Popeda, kaasua…, Tactic, 300 pieces. Completed on May 6, 2023.

Birdwatching, 2023-05-02

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Schmidt has really upped their game in the last few years, especially with regard to images. The quality was always great, but now the images are as well. This year, they have a series with four Aimee Stewart images, and I already have three of them.

This puzzle was just as entertaining as it looks, I loved it. It was fairly easy to pick out the pieces for the different areas, the Victory Canary Songster with the red background was easiest and first, and the dark parts of the binoculars were last.

Birdwatching by Aimee Stewart, Schmidt, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 2, 2023.

As usual, the rather tight fit is very pleasant when putting the puzzle together, but makes taking it apart a bit of a chore. I had one damaged piece, but since the image layer piece is still there, it will be easy to fix:

Flower House, 2023-04-30

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Not my usual style, but I enjoyed it, and the colours are really nice. I have no idea where this puzzle came from – it turned up at my desk in the library, which means a colleague must have brought it in for me, but I have no idea who. Thank you, whoever you are!

Flower House, Clementoni, 500 pieces. Completed on April 30, 2023.

Titanic – First Accounts, 2023-04-23

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The name of the puzzle is also the name of a book, and this is the cover image. The book contains stories told by survivors of the disaster. I actually wanted to do this for the anniversary of the sinking on April 15 1912, but I missed by almost a week.

This turned out to be a bit more challenging than expected, there was quite a lot of sky, and the box was quite small and of the usual shape, meaning that with the panorama shaped puzzle, the image on the box was very small. I’m not usually a fan of posters, but this time, I could have used one.

Titanic – First Accounts, New York Puzzle Company, 1000 pieces. Completed on April 23, 2023.

All of the previous NYPC puzzles I’ve done had a random cut, but this was a standard grid cut, fortunately of good quality. I also found the explanation on the box:

It seems, it makes more sense to have production in Europe than to pay for shipping over the Atlantic. I’m a bit sad about the missing random cut, most of the puzzles I do are grid cut, and I like some variety. Eurographics also has production in Germany, but those puzzles are random cut, so not impossible, although my impression is that random cut is much more usual in the USA.