I decided to do the same puzzle twice as my next project. I have two copies of this puzzle, because I had already bought one when I got another in a lot with other puzzles:
I’ve done the same thing once before, will be interesting to see if I have the same experience.
I was a bit worried that I would find the image too dark, but it turned out to be a really nice puzzle.
I finished the first puzzle, and it turned out to have one piece missing, the top left corner.
This was, of course, very easy, which was exactly what I needed after a very difficult Kandinsky image. I must say, I didn’t even know that there is a Disney version of Hercules, but then I’m unlikely to have seen any Disney cartoons made after 1980. One funny thing, it says “Made in France” on the box. I can’t remember ever having had a Ravensburger that was made in France, but it’s the usual great quality, exactly the same as the puzzles made in Germany.
I knew this would be difficult, but I can’t remember when I last spent an entire week on one 1000 piece puzzle. The image is a Kandinsky from 1937, and I really like it, but it was so hard. Only the three gridlike squares (top right, middle of the right edge, and bottom left) were reasonably easy, after that all pieces looked pretty much the same 🙂
This was my second Bluebird puzzle. It’s a French brand, but the puzzles are manufactured in various countries. The first I did was made in Turkey, and this one in Poland. The cut is different, this one is much closer to what I would consider a normal grid cut, whereas the first (3K puzzle) that I did somehow was much more “pointy” (you can see closeups in the post about that puzzle, I think you’ll see what I mean). The pieces were also what I would call normal size, whereas the pieces of the 3K puzzle were much smaller than usual. The quality is nice, but not spectacular, but very good value since Bluebird puzzles are far from expensive. You can easily pay more for far worse quality.
I’m definitely doing something easy next!
Nice painting from 1894 by Charles Burton Barber, who was famous in his day for painting children and animals. Even Queen Victoria commissioned paintings from him, according to the box.
Suspense by Charles Burton Barber, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 12, 2021.
I’ve seen some discussion about deteriorating quality in Eurographics puzzles lately, but this was again excellent, with a random cut and excellent quality. Eurographics have production both in Europe and America, and this puzzle was made in Germany (a phrase I’m always happy to see on puzzle boxes).
My vacation is unfortunately over, so there will be fewer completed puzzles now that I’m working again.
A very busy pool image from the 80s. Although the copyright on the box says 2019, and the puzzle was produced in 2020, the same image has been used in a puzzle in 1987. It was fun, although I always end up relying on the box a bit more than I would prefer with these busy images. The quality of the puzzle was excellent, as has been the case with the newest Heyes.
I was actually pretty sure the image was not from 2019 even before I looked it up – the phone does not look recent 🙂
My first attempt to buy this puzzle resulted in me getting just 100 pieces instead of 1000 (incredibly, the price was almost the same), but now I finally have the version I want. It was very enjoyable, I really like puzzles with vintage travel motifs. I started off with the text, and did the black parts last, of course. There were some colour variations in the black areas as well, the mountain on the left was a bluish black and the one on the right more grey, so that helped as well. I also like the random cut, although this is a rather tame random cut, not much different from a grid cut.
I did a What If?-puzzle, and as usual you can see a photo of the finished puzzle by clicking here. The box is in French for some reason, although I ordered from puzzle.de. This was my third What If? puzzle, and in the previous ones, the puzzle basically showed almost the same scene as the box, just a few seconds later, but this was more difficult in that the entire setting was different. Only the people were the same, but they were wearing different clothes and doing different things. Anyway, we are asked to imagine what would have happened, if Marcel had lost the lottery ticket.
I went to the Borussia Dortmund FanWelt at the stadium yesterday to pick up tickets for the first competitive game of the new women’s football team on Sunday (they play Kreisliga, and the tickets are free). I almost thought I would get out of the fan shop without buying anything, but close to the exit they had two new puzzles that I had to get, of course:
The dark one will be really difficult, it says “Für echte Profis” (For real pros) on the box, and I felt challenged 🙂
Lovely painting of sunflowers, and actually not as difficult as I was expecting. I did the vase and table first, and then I pulled the pieces that formed the center of the flowers. I had most of the flowers done before it became hard, and by then there were so few pieces left that the rest wasn’t much of a problem.
Lovely collage of clocks by Grafika. Fun and easy, and probably the best quality Grafika that I’ve ever done. The pieces were thicker than usual, and very few pieces were stuck together, which is a problem I’ve had with Grafika in the past.
Another great Marino Degano image, this time a bouquet of flowers with lots of bugs.
There are references to a lot of football teams in this, and this is the first time I’ve seen a reference to Borussia Dortmund in a Marino Degano puzzle: a bee is holding up a BVB flag! On either side there are fans of AC Milan and Chelsea, and I think the Allez les Verts points to French team St. Etienne. The reds with the You’ll Never Walk Alone-banner must be from Liverpool, although the song has been taken up by many other clubs, and is always sung seven minutes before kickoff in Dortmund.
Hippie bus and flower moonshine.
Again, there are refrences to existing websites: cucaracha.fr is again a site by Marino Degano, in French and looks like it’s for children. Projektraumobjekt.com also exists, and it’s some sort of interior design business in Hamburg.
On the cockroach website, there was a link to website about the Historia Comica-puzzles, with lots of early sketches. Very interesting!
Unfortunately, this was again one of the worst Heyes with regard to quality. Thin cardboard and pieces that wouldn’t lie flat made it difficult to know whether a piece belonged or not. I wanted to do the edges early but had to give up on that, the quality just wasn’t good enough. The date on the bag is October, 2016.
Puzzler1909 