As always, I start the year by taking a statistical look back at the previous years puzzling. In 2021, I completed 96 puzzles and placed 97 529 pieces. This is down from last year, when I completed 147 puzzles and placed 125 151 pieces. This is at least partly due to the fact that I’ve been doing larger puzzles that take longer to complete, and less small puzzles (the average number of pieces for my 2021 puzzles is 1015, and for 2020 it was only 851).

The top three brands are still unchanged, although the percentaged are smaller than they used to be (last year 29%, 18% and 12%. If you count pieces instead of completed puzzles, Ravensburger is still at 29%, because all of the larger puzzles I did were from Ravensburger. The two sections I completed of the 18 000 piece puzzle are counted as two 4500 piece puzzles.

Brand	Amount	%
Ravensburger	22	23 %
Heye	11	11 %
Clementoni	8	8 %
Grafika	4	4 %
Schmidt	3	3 %
Piatnik	3	3 %
Peliko	3	3 %
Anatolian / Perre	3	3 %
Tactic	2	2 %
Cobble Hill	2	2 %
Bluebird Puzzle	2	2 %
D-Toys	2	2 %
Pomegranate	2	2 %
Eurographics	2	2 %
Gibsons Puzzle	2	2 %
Jumbo	2	2 %
Postdienst – Deutsche Bundespost	1	1 %
Pelikan	1	1 %
Galison	1	1 %
Calvendo	1	1 %
Buffalo	1	1 %
Helsingin kaupunginmuseo	1	1 %
Ricordi Arte	1	1 %
Wentworth Wooden Puzzles	1	1 %
Unknown	1	1 %
eeBoo	1	1 %
Castorland	1	1 %
Ikea	1	1 %
FX Schmid	1	1 %
Crystal Lines	1	1 %
Arrow	1	1 %
Lautapelit.fi	1	1 %
Cloudberries	1	1 %
New York Puzzle Company	1	1 %
Unidragon	1	1 %
Nyckelpussel	1	1 %
Educa	1	1 %
Otter House	1	1 %
House of Puzzles	1	1 %
Grand Total	96	100 %

Next piece count. As I said, I’ve been doing larger puzzles, and this can be seen especially in the amount of 500 piece puzzles that I’ve done – last year it was 31%, now down to 25%. The top three piece counts are unchanged from last year.

Pieces	Amount	%
1000	49	51 %
500	24	25 %
1500	7	7 %
2000	4	4 %
4500	2	2 %
387	1	1 %
291	1	1 %
759	1	1 %
368	1	1 %
400	1	1 %
250	1	1 %
555	1	1 %
5000	1	1 %
504	1	1 %
515	1	1 %
Grand Total	96	100 %

Last year, I complained that I was buying too many puzzles, much more than I completed, but I’m happy to report that 2021 was better in this respect. I acquired 83 puzzles and 92 922 pieces in 2021, and that’s 13 puzzles and 4607 pieces less than I completed / placed. I hope I can keep the balance next year as well.

Happy New Year!