Author: puzzler1909

I share my time between my native Helsinki (Finland) and Dortmund (Germany), where my football team Borussia Dortmund lives. This blog is about my puzzling actvities in these cities.

Pink, 2023-09-07

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This was my first puzzle in the Cobble Hill Rainbow Collection, and I have to say it was not as enjoyable as I was hoping it would be. Turns out, I wasn’t in the mood for a puzzle with such small details, I think I would have preferred some larger objects. There was also a small quality issue with many pieces stuck together to another piece, and in many cases it wasn’t possible to separate the pieces without damaging them.

Pink, Cobble Hill, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 7, 2023.

I really liked the clock and the water melon:

The word pink appeared in many languages, including Finnish (“vaaleanpunainen”):

Classic Gas, 2023-09-02

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This was just as much fun as it looks. I always enjoy vintage ads, and there’s plenty of that here, although Pepsi and Coca Cola are the only brands I actually recognized. Master Pieces quality varies a lot, but this puzzle was ok.

Classic Gas, Master Pieces, 750 pieces. Completed on September 2, 2023.

Stardust, 2023-08-31

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This is the third and last of the puzzles I recently borrowed from a friend. It’s another Curiosi, and this time I assembled it in the frame, and I also used the box image.

Stardust, Curiosi, 211 pieces. Completed on August 31, 2023.

On the box, there is the word “palapeli”, which means jigsaw puzzle in Finnish (literally, it means “piece game”). This seemed a bit strange, because Curiosi is a German brand, and it’s unlikely that they would customize their boxes for the Finnish market. I had a look, and it says palapeli on many of their boxes – they’ve named a series of puzzles after the Finnish word! I think that’s kind of cool. Here’s a photo of the box (it’s about the size of an LP, older readers will know what I mean):

Owl, 2023-08-30

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Another borrowed puzzle, and another new to me German brand. Like Curiosi, Philos is also located about 100 km east of Dortmund, this time in Paderborn. There seems to be a lot of small puzzle companies around, I need to start paying more attention!

Anyway, this is a wooden puzzle, with very thick, although strangely light pieces. The cut seemed a bit rough in places, and there were a few identical pieces that I managed to place wrong, but it was still a nice puzzle to do.

Owl, Philos, 173 pieces. Completed on August 30, 2023.

There were some whimsies, but not all that many. Here are the ones I could find:

While the brand is clearly Philos, it also says “Artifact Wooden Puzzle” on the box, which I find a bit misleading, since there is a US wooden puzzle brand called Artifact Puzzles. I’ve had the pleasure of doing and Artifact puzzle, and this is nowhere near as good as those, although it was still an enjoyable puzzle.

Owls, 2023-08-30

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This lovely puzzle was loaned to me by a friend. The brand is Curiosi, a German brand that I’ve never come across before. They’re located in Halle (Westfalen), which is only about 100 km east of Dortmund, but this was actually bought in Finland, at the Heureka Science Centre.

Owls, Curiosi, 211 pieces. Completed on August 30, 2023.

It was only 211 pieces, but I did this without looking at the box, and the cut made it quite tricky:

The puzzle came with a frame that you could assemble the puzzle in, but I just did it on the table without using the frame. I came to regret this when I had to wrangle the puzzle into frame afterwards, as you can imagine, this puzzle is nohwere near fully interlocking, so moving the whole puzzle was pretty difficult.

The back of the frame has a stand, or you can mount it on a wall.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any mention of an artist, either on the box or on the Curiosi website. Very enjoyable little puzzle, though.

European Map, Quirky Circus, 2023-08-29

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This was a very entertaining mix of old map and nonsensical illustrations. The illustrations remind me of another circus, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The map is indeed old, the capital of Norway is called Christiania instead of Oslo (it was called Christiania from 1624-1924, before and after it was / is Oslo). Loved it!

European Map, Quirky Circus, Ravensburger, 500 pieces. Completed on August 29, 2023.

Spellbinder Portrait, 2023-08-28

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While this is not an image I would choose to put on my wall, for example, it made for a very entertaining puzzle. It was a lot easier than I expected, and even the dark parts had different shades that made the pieces easy to pick out.

Spellbinder Portrait by Bente Schlick, Clementoni, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 28, 2023.

Pantone: Turquoise Peacock, 2023-08-27

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Another Pantone puzzle by Clementoni, after this there’s only one more that I’m aware of. This was very much like the other two Pantone puzzles I’ve done. I had to sort according to shape for the turquoise strip on the right, and the plumage turned out to be quite challenging.

Pantone: Turquoise Peacock, Clementoni, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 26, 2023.

In Blue, 2023-08-25

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This puzzle, bought in 2018, still had the random cut that all Eurographics puzzles used to have. I was very happy to see this, since now some of them have a cut where all the pieces have the same basic shape.

I usually find that Kandinsky paintings make great puzzles, and this one from 1925 was no exception. It was a very enjoyable and fast assembly.

In Blue by Kandinsky, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 25, 2023.