Month: January 2022

Spirit of the Derby, 2022-01-08

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The image is a painting depicting the the Epsom Derby The artist, Terence Cuneo (1907-1996) was the official artist for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, according to Wikipedia. This painting was actually called Derby Day, not Spirit of the Derby, and it depicts a scene from the 1979 Derby (the first Derby was in 1780, and it’s still going strong).

Spirit of the Derby by T. Cuneo, Arrow, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 8, 2022.

I would have guessed the scene was from the 70s even if I hadn’t found a mention of it online. This man can only be from the 70s 🙂

The puzzle was not really good quality, the pieces are very thin, and pieces sometimes fit where they don’t belong, but the image helped here. The last Arrow puzzle I tried, I didn’t even finish, I just couldn’t get the sky right. I always thought Arrow was a British brand, but it says Made in Ireland on the box. The puzzle is also ribbon cut, which I don’t like, but despite this, and the quality, it was still a reasonably entertaining puzzle, thanks to the great image.

I’ve never been to any Derby, but I used to ride horses as a child, and I’ve read plenty about them. Lester Piggott is still the jockey with the most wins in the Epsom Derby (the last from 1983), and I remember reading about him. I also loved the thrillers by Dick Francis, all set in the horse racing world. His son has continued writing racing thrillers.

Poppy Meadow, 2022-01-06

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My first SpielSpass puzzle! It’s a triptych with a 1000-piece puzzle in the middle flanked by two 500-piece puzzles. It’s from 2007, and I got it, factory sealed, for 1 EUR. I did from left to right as three separate puzzles, I did not mix the bags.

Poppy Meadow, SpielSpass, 2×500 & 1×1000 pieces. Completed on January 6, 2022.

I haven’t seen many SpielSpass puzzles, and I’m not sure they even do puzzles anymore. This puzzle was clearly intended for the German market, since the title is given in German only (Mohnwiese, translated by me as Poppy Meadow). (SpielSpass is German and could be translated as GameFun or PlayFun.) It’s too bad that there aren’t more of these around, because the quality turned out to be good. The cut reminded me most of Heye, and the pieces were sturdy. Here’s a close up:

Only the poppies really stood out, so I started all of the three puzzles by pulling the red pieces and the edges. After that there was always a bit of uncertainty of what to do next, but this was the kind of puzzle that seemed almost to complete itself. Even when the conscious part of my brain didn’t know where a piece belonged, some other part told my hands what to do, and I kept placing the pieces correctly. Great puzzle, and much faster than I had anticipated 🙂

Central Station, 2022-01-03

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I’m not a fan of Educa, I find pieces often fit where they don’t belong, but with this image, I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. It turned out to be a fun and relatively easy, just as expected. I don’t know if this is supposed to be an actual central station in an actual city (probably not), but it says Amtrak on the train on the left, so it’s definitely supposed to be in the USA.

Central Station, Educa, 500 pieces. Completed on January 3, 2022.

Movers & Shakers, 2022-01-02

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This was a great image, and the quality was not as bad as my last 500 piece Gibsons. It’s ribbon cut, which I don’t like, for some reason, and the fit wasn’t great (but OK).

Movers & Shakers by Steve Read, Gibsons, 500 pieces. Completed on January 2, 2022.

I’ve done some really lovely 1000 piece Gibsons in between (they were grid cut and great in every way), but I wasn’t happy with The Missing Piece. Even so, turns out I was lucky, because I saw someone post about the same puzzle on FB, and they had entire rows of pieces missing, and doubles of other pieces.

Anyway, mediocre quality, but it was still pretty fun to put together!

Road Trip, 2022-01-01

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This was a great puzzle to start off 2022, with a really nice image, and some text as well. This is another 1500 piece Bluebird, and again, I find the quality astoundingly good for the price. The puzzle was manufactured in Turkey, and has smaller pieces than usual, so that the finished puzzle is the size of a regular 1000 piece puzzle. The fit is excellent, quite tight, but not so tight it’s difficult to take apart. All in all a wonderful puzzle.

Road Trip, Bluebird Puzzle, 1500 pieces. Completed on January 1, 2022.

While I’m not planning any trips to Florida, I do hope that travel will become easier in 2022, so this puzzle is a fitting start in that respect as well 🙂

Stats

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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!