Month: February 2019

Historia Comica, Opus 2, In Progress

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I’m leaving for Dortmund again today, so here’s an update on Opus 2:

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Many of the panes are now connected to either the border or the piece of space in the middle.

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The mammoths find out their days are numbered.
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200 million years B.C., Pangaea. Before the continents separated.
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This is part of a corner image, where life is leaving the sea. With proper support, of course, a lifeguard and paramedics on hand for emergencies 🙂 Also love the game of badminton.

The Hunter, 2008-12-29

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Here’s one that I missed when I was writing up the Egyptian fakes. A mosaic-style pharaoh (?) hunting.

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The Hunter, Sunsout, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 29th, 2008.

This was the first Sunsout puzzle I ever did, and I was amazed at the irregular cut. This was the first time I’d seen that, and since Eurographics cuts are also somewhat irregular, I thought all American puzzles had irregular cuts instead of the “European” grid cut. While this is hardly wild, it still made the puzzle quite challenging for me.

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The Colosseum, 2007-12-16

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The Colosseum in Rome. Emperor Vespasian began construction in 70 AD, and the building was finished by his son, emperor Titus in 80 AD. It was originally known as Amphitheatrum Flavium, the amphitheatre of the Flavians, as Vespasian and Titus had the family name Flavius. It’s been estimated that it could hold up to 80 000 spectators. In addition to gladiatorial combats, other types of spectacles could also be organized, and the most exotic was surely the mock sea battles. In the middle ages, it was no longer used for entertainment but had other uses, such as housing. I wonder if the Colosseum was considered a desirable address. Now it is, of course, one of Rome’s top tourist attraction.

The puzzle itself was a bit on the difficult side, although the great Ravensburger quality helped, of course.

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The Colosseum, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 12th, 2007.

Eiffel Tower, 2019-02-01

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A Heye cartoon puzzle by Loup, perhaps not as busy as many newer images. Certainly more sky than usual. This was originally released in 1987 (as Paris! Paris!), then re-released in 2010, and mine is from 2015.

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Eiffel Tower by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 1st, 2019.

I did the tower first, then the edges and the sky last. I only found the last edge piece after I was halfway done, I was convinced I’d lost it.

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I love these klutzy birds, very loupy 🙂

Fraud!

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Yesterday I found a new charity shop close to where I live in Dortmund. They get everything as donations, and the proceeds go to charity. They have no prices, you get to decide how much you want to pay. They have mostly books, but there were a few puzzles as well. It’s a really nice, cosy, place, and they offer coffee and cookies. I went in and got a book and two puzzles. One of the puzzles is a 500-piece Spielspass puzzle with 3D effects. As soon as I opened the box I could see something’s wrong:

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That’s nowhere near 500 pieces! I counted them, there are 182 pieces in there. There was also a piece of cardboard in the box, otherwise, I might have reacted to how light it was, and I think that’s why the cardboard is there. I just can’t understand why someone would do something like this, it’s not like the charity shop pays anything.

Anyway, I’m not upset (just mystified), all that happened was that I gave some money to charity. There are worse things 🙂

I’m not going to try putting the existing pieces together, partly because there are less than half left, and partly because the pieces are all the same basic shape (boring and difficult). I usually don’t mind missing pieces, but this is just too much. It’s going in the bin, obviously.

I once did a puzzle with about 50 pieces missing (piece count about 1000-1500, I don’t remember exactly anymore) and I remember it fondly, actually. It was like a reminder that in puzzling, as in life, it is best to work with the pieces you have instead of looking to fill the empty places. I often think that the goal of putting a puzzle together is not to form a complete picture but to reduce the number of pieces until there is only one. That way it’s not a failure even if there are pieces missing. Except, of course, when there are so many missing pieces that you may end up with many small puzzle islands 🙂

The other puzzle I got seems fine:

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I’ll miss out on the augmented reality bit since I don’t have an iPhone or iPad, but everything looks to be OK with this puzzle.

Football History, 2018-06-21

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Football History by Alex Bennett, Heye, 3000 pieces, finished on June 21st, 2018.

During the world cup in the summer of 2018, I completed this puzzle while following the games. It came in two bags, and I didn’t mix them. This seems to be a new thing, having 3000-piece puzzles in two 1500-piece bags, this was the second I’ve seen (the first was a new Schmidt-puzzle).

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The puzzle is full of details from the history of football, up to the 2016 European Cup.

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During World War 1 the troops in the trenches take a break from fighting during Christmas and play a game of football.
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The old World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet trophy, in Brazilian hands. In 1970, Brazil won the World Cup for the third time and was then allowed to keep the trophy. Sadly, it was stolen in 1983 and never recovered.
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The new trophy, still in use.
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Marco Tardelli celebrates scoring in the World Cup final of 1982. Italy won the game against Germany 3-1.
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Colombian goalkeeper René Higuita, also known as El Loco, performing his scorpion kick (1995). Sometimes Higuita would take the ball off an attacker and go on the attack himself. That did leave his own goal vulnerable, but it was great fun to watch. I especially remember him from the 1990 World Cup. In 2018 he appeared as an expert on German television.
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French player Zinedine Zidane headbutts the Italian Marco Materazzi in the 2006 final. It was Zidane’s last game as a player, and he was sent off. Later, it became known that Materazzi had insulted Zidane’s sister to provoke him. The game ended 1-1 and Italy won on penalties.
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Mario Götze scores the winning goal for Germany in the 2014 final between Germany and Argentina. Götze played for Bayern München in 2014, but he is now back in Dortmund.
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I was of course interested to see if there was anything about my team Borussia Dortmund in the image. And there was: in 1999 Bayern MĂĽnchen goalkeeper Oliver Kahn bites Borussia Dortmund player Heiko Herrlich during a game in Dortmund. Herrlich later said it was more of a nibble, not a proper bite. Kahn now works as a football expert on German television, and Herrlich was fired before Christmas at Bayer Leverkusen, where he was the manager.

In the 2019 Heye catalog there is an updated version of the puzzle, with scenes from the 2018 World Cup, but I’m going to stick with this one 🙂