A rather conventional image, but it was still a nice puzzle. It’s been sitting in my do do pile for a good long time, probably because the colour palette is a bit muted. I bought the puzzle second hand, but it turned out to be not only complete, but in excellent condition.
For the puzzle challenge I’m doing, this will be #2, a jetty. Here are some newlyweds on the jetty heading for a boat called Next Step.
This puzzle had been hovering near my cart for a few years, somehow always ending up not making the cut, until a couple of months ago when I finally bought it. And I’m glad I did, because it’s now sold out (I think I got the last copy), and I very much enjoyed doing it. I especially like the colours. I did the yellow pile of coins first, then the rest of the background, and the red bits of the dragon were last.
For the puzzle challenge I’m doing, this was the bonus challenge for January, which is “dragon”. By the way, the literal meaning of the Finnish word for dragon is “salmon snake” – a rather desperate attempt to describe a dragon using some familiar animals.
CORRECTION: Actually, it seems that the first part probably doesn’t mean salmon here, but it comes from an old Swedish word “floghdraki”, which means flying snake. The Finnish word “lohikäärme” took the first part (flying, flogh) from the Swedish word and used the Finnish word for snake (käärme). A flying snake makes much more sense.
Well, it did not take long for the first missing piece of 2024 to turn up, or rather, not to turn up (it’s a bit difficult to see, in a palm tree on the left). I seem to be having a some bad luck with missing pieces lately. Otherwise, the puzzle was enjoyable and I really liked the colours. It’s part of the Trefl Crazy Shapes-series, where starting with the edges is not an option, as you can see.
For my puzzle challenge, this will be #13, Moonlight.
A Finnish Facebook group that I’m in does a yearly puzzle challenge. There’s a list with 30 items, and you should complete one puzzle for each item. There is no prize, or indeed any rules, you can decide for yourself if you want to count the same puzzle for different categories, and items can be loosely interpreted. For example, item #1, Human anatomy, is probably going to be sugar skulls for me 🙂
Anyway, here’s the list for 2024:
| 1. Human anatomy |
| 2. Jetty |
| 3. Dream |
| 4. Gradient |
| 5. A Pearl in my collection |
| 6. Fruit |
| 7. Africa |
| 8. Party |
| 9. Done without looking at the image |
| 10. Pieces are smaller than usual |
| 11. The puzzle somehow illustrates my personality or me |
| 12. My favourite brand |
| 13. Moonlight |
| 14. Fox |
| 15. Religious building |
| 16. Game |
| 17. Disney/Fantasy |
| 18. (Vintage) Educational poster |
| 19. Yellow |
| 20. Vehicle that I’ve travelled in |
| 21. Vehicle that I’ve never travelled in / would like to travel in |
| 22. Thre are letters in the puzzle |
| 23. Out of the comfort zone |
| 24. Fits no item on the list |
| 25. At least one piece missing |
| 26. Shaped puzzle |
| 27. Forest |
| 28. 2 puzzles from the same series (1) |
| 29. 2 puzzles from the same series (2) |
| 30. A puzzle released in 2024 |
Last year, I finished the challenge in March, I think, but I plan on going much slower this year 🙂
In addition, there’s a monthly extra challenge, and for January that is “dragon”.
Back to the Stenvall ducks. This was number 21/30, and I hope to be able to finish the rest of them this year. Puzzle quality was nice, although with a very loose fit. Only the dark area on top was a bit challenging.
I’m not a huge fan of Falcon, because even though the pieces are sturdy and there’s a good mix of piece shapes, it is prone to the odd false fit. But then again, I cannot resist vintage trams, and I’m not sorry I got this. It was a bit more difficult than expected, but enjoyable throughout.
Lovely little puzzle, and very fast to do. It says Made in the Czech Republic on the box, but the quality is the same as with Ravensburg produced in Germany.
The fit and cut is the same as with the previous Cherry Pazzi puzzle (that is to say excellent, except for the boring piece shapes), but there’s been a bit of a production snafu with this one – two pieces in the bottom left corner have doubles, and one piece is missing (on the left, between Neptune and Earth). I guess when you get a great quality puzzle for a very good price, some economies may have been made in production. I’ll still buy Cherry Pazzi puzzles, although perhaps not 500 piece puzzles (because of the boring cut).
I’m not sure if I’ve just been unlucky, of if there really are a lot more cases like this lately. Have you had more new puzzles with extra or missing pieces lately?
The second of the Star Trek Clementonis I got was thankfully complete, and a lot of fun to do. It was more difficult than I anticipated to know which piece belonged to which face, but still a fairly easy puzzle.
Clementoni has put out more 500 piece puzzles in VHS-type packaging, including some Star Trek images. This was otherwise lovely, but as you can see, there are 12 pieces missing in the bottom left corner. Looks like someone took a little bite out of the puzzle. I actually noticed that there are missing pieces really late, because I didn’t start with the edges, and got to the bottom left corner quite late. Oh well, these things happen.
Puzzler1909 