Month: September 2020

[Westfalenstadion], 2020-09-25

puzzler1909Leave a comment

So, I’m in Dortmund, and the season has started, but I’m unlikely to get to see a game in the stadium this year. Some spectatores are allowed, but it’s only about 1/8 of the capacity, and all of those tickets go to season ticket holders. (You may ask why I don’t have a season ticket, and that’s because there’s a very long queue, which I am on, but I’m unlikely to ever get one. Only a handful become available each year, and the queue is very long, so long, in fact, that they are no longer accepting new applicants.)

[Westfalenstadion], 500 pieces. Completed on September 29, 2020.

At least the fan shop has a new puzzle to cheer me up! It shows the stadium with its unmistakeable 8 yellow pylons. For sponsoring reasons, the stadium if officially known as Signal Iduna Park, but its real name is Westfalenstadion. In the foreground there’s the old stadium, where the second team plays. I actually did manage to get a ticket for one of their games (an unfortunate 1-1 agains Rot-Weiss Essen, with the equalizer conceded in injury time).

The puzzle was of great quality (not always the case with this type of merch), it reminded me of Heye, but there was no indication on the box where or by whom it was produced. I don’t usually go for images that are mostly black and white, but I loved this!

Space Travel Posters, 2020-09-21

puzzler19091 Comment

Possibly one of the the greatest puzzles I’ve ever done. A 2000-piece Cobble Hill collage of posters promoting (non-existent) space travel. I actually have the Kepler 16b-poster as a separate, 500-piece puzzle, but that’s by the New York Puzzle Company, this is by Cobble Hill.

Space Travel Posters, Cobble Hill, 2000 pieces. Completed on September 21, 2020.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – that’s what I call a grand tour. This was my favourite of the posters.
Europa is a moon of Jupiter. There’s an excellent SciFi film from 2013 called Europa Report about an expedition to Europa.

By the way, the box says “Random Cut”, but as you can see, the cut is actually quite tame, and looks almost like a ribbon cut to me.

The quality was overall great, but there was a bit of a “fault line” in the middle of the puzzle, and that doesn’t work too well with text (or lines). It really didn’t look good:

I still think it’s one of the best and most entertaining puzzles I’ve ever done. Stylish posters and lots of text 🙂

Spirit of the 70s, 2020-09-18

puzzler1909Leave a comment

Great 70s collage from a British perspective by Gibsons.

Spirit of the 70s, Gibsons, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 18, 2020.
One of my favourite 70’s cop show, the Sweeney with John Thaw, and some football.
At first I thought that Kojak wasn’t in this collage, but he sort of is. As Kojak pops 🙂 Apparently, the pops in the show wasn’t something that was planned, it was just Telly Savalas trying to quit smoking, and he took up pops instead.
Well, that didn’t work out…
I would love to do this Concorde jigsaw 🙂

This puzzle was obviously great fun from start to finish!

Poisons and Potions, 2020-09-17

puzzler1909Leave a comment

Wonderful new Ravensburger 2000-piece image of a witch’s cupboard. I loved it! Not the easiest 2000-piece puzzle I’ve ever done, but certainly one of the most entertaining. Quality was also great, and there was none of the lift that I’ve seen with some newer Ravensburgers.

Poisons and Potions, Ravensburger, 2000 pieces. Completed on September 17, 2020.
I think I may have had quite a lot of Night Owl Potion…
Lots to choose from…
Love the design of this one.
For some reason, this looks like a bottle of gin to me 🙂

Sea Symphony, 2020-07-08

puzzler1909Leave a comment

This was my second puzzle of the brand Art Puzzle, and I have to say the quality wasn’t as good as with the first. The fit was somehow a bit off, the pieces just didn’t fit together as well as they should. I was never in any doubt whether a piece belonged or not, the precision of the cut was still good.

I haven’t done many images like this, I guess the genre would be romantic / fantasy, but I really liked this image, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable puzzle.

img_20200708_194336__Q3MpE
Sea Symphony, Art Puzzle, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 8, 2020.

 

Cruise Ship, 2020-06-14

puzzler1909Leave a comment

Today, me and my car are on a ferry from Helsinki to Travemünde in Germany, from where I will drive to Dortmund for a long stay. The ship isn’t exactly a cruise ship, it’s mostly a cargo ship that also takes passengers (and cars).

I think this may be the first image by van Haasteren I’ve ever done, and that’s because I tend to avoid Jumbo puzzles. I still think that the precision of the cut isn’t very good and it’s easy to place pieces wrong, but it doesn’t matter much with this kind of busy image. Otherwise, I find the Wasgij and van Haasteren series to be of excellent quality, although I’ve had some other puzzles from Jumbo with quite thin pieces. Anyway, this is definitely my kind of image, I’m always happy to do cruise ships.

img_20200615_105848
Cruise Ship by Jan van Haasteren, Jumbo, 1000 pieces. Completed on June 14, 2020.

This is a strange scene. My first thought was that the woman is being robbed by criminals dressed as police, and then I thought they were police and looking for her companion (notice the third hand in the bed), but I think I’ve finally worked out what’s going on. They’re looking for an escaped criminal dressed in stripes …

img_20200615_125950

… and he’s hiding behind the staircase.

IMG_20200614_224143

The movie seems to be Jaws (but why black & white?).

img_20200615_130016

A Titanic moment ruined.

img_20200615_130011

The scout leader looks very happy to be tied up by his young charges.

img_20200615_125959

Fellow librarians?

img_20200615_125957

Enthusiastic fishers have some fish fingers delivered. Fish fingers seem to be all anyone ever eats on this ship, from the dining room to the bridge.

img_20200615_125948

Fighting over a life west, never a good sign on a cruise ship.

img_20200615_125955

This was very enjoyable, but my favourite cruise ship puzzle is still the Heye by Anders Lyon. In that puzzle, the movie was Robin Hood, by the way 🙂

 

Soft Rock, 2020-07-19

puzzler1909Leave a comment

I couldn’t remember anything about the first time I did this puzzle, but I thought it must have been fun, and it was! Not the easiest puzzle I’ve ever done, it took me almost a week, but I loved it from start to finish. One piece missing.

img_20200719_050118
Soft Rock by RS Crisp, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 19, 2020.

There are, of course, lots of funny details. Here’s the classic husband-home-early scene.

img_20200719_050129

Baby is not happy with mom’s dancing partner.

img_20200719_050218

I think this may the only puzzle I’ve seen with drug use 🙂

img_20200719_050234

There was one more 1500 piece Heye that I did again, Ahoy!, but I forgot to take a photo. That also had a piece missing. Three 1500 piece Heyes, all with a piece missing, and all in triangular boxes. Coincidence? I think not 🙂 It’s more difficult to get the pieces back in a triangular box, and it’s not as secure as a normal puzzle box. Oh well, it was still fun to revisit some puzzles that did in 2007 and 2009.

Ahoy! and Soft Rock are from 2007, and New York from 2008. Heye always has a rather loose fit, but the ones from 2007 are extremely loose, wheras New York has a slightly tighter fit that was much more pleasant to work with. The current Heyes have a better fit than any of these, which is nice, because sometimes it feels like it’s all downhill with puzzle quality.

New York, 2020-07-11

puzzler1909Leave a comment

Another puzzle I got back after giving it away. There’s one piece missing, but it’s almost impossible to see on this photo.

img_20200713_021446
New York by eBoy, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 11, 2020.

I have to say the pixellated image is not my favourite, just as last time. I began to enjoy it a lot more after I was about halfway through.

img_20200713_021620

This may have been done specifically for Heye, or maybe they put the logo in an existing image.

img_20200713_021500

 

Divinità nel vestibolo, 2020-06-23

puzzler1909Leave a comment

A friend of mine brought back some puzzles that I had given away before my last move in 2013, and I decided to do them again.  When I last wrote about this, I had the brand down as Impronti Edizioni, but that was wrong. It’s part of a series called Art Stones (great quality, small boxes that don’t take up more space than they need to). I always thought Art Stones was an imprint of Ricordi Arte, but actually, there’s nothing on the boxes to indicate this. Both mistaking this for Impronti Edizioni and thinking Art Stones is part of Ricordi Arte must have come from the places where I ordered the puzzles since I used to list the details before I actually had the puzzles. More than one online store used to list Art Stones puzzles as Ricordi Arte, so perhaps there is some connection.

Anyway, Art Stones puzzles are no longer being produced (or at least, they are no longer availbale where I shop), which is unfortunate, because the quality is great and they have great images, too.

All the pieces are still there, and I was going to sell it, but I enjoyed it so much I’m leaning towards keeping it. I wrote about who the gods in the image are last time, so I’m not going to repeat myself here.

img_20200623_113808
Divinità nel vestibolo, Art Stones, 1500 pieces. Completed on June 23, 2020.