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.

Cruise Ship, 2020-06-14

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Today, me and my car are on a ferry from Helsinki to Travemünde in Germany, from where I will drive to Dortmund for a long stay. The ship isn’t exactly a cruise ship, it’s mostly a cargo ship that also takes passengers (and cars).

I think this may be the first image by van Haasteren I’ve ever done, and that’s because I tend to avoid Jumbo puzzles. I still think that the precision of the cut isn’t very good and it’s easy to place pieces wrong, but it doesn’t matter much with this kind of busy image. Otherwise, I find the Wasgij and van Haasteren series to be of excellent quality, although I’ve had some other puzzles from Jumbo with quite thin pieces. Anyway, this is definitely my kind of image, I’m always happy to do cruise ships.

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Cruise Ship by Jan van Haasteren, Jumbo, 1000 pieces. Completed on June 14, 2020.

This is a strange scene. My first thought was that the woman is being robbed by criminals dressed as police, and then I thought they were police and looking for her companion (notice the third hand in the bed), but I think I’ve finally worked out what’s going on. They’re looking for an escaped criminal dressed in stripes …

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… and he’s hiding behind the staircase.

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The movie seems to be Jaws (but why black & white?).

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A Titanic moment ruined.

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The scout leader looks very happy to be tied up by his young charges.

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Fellow librarians?

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Enthusiastic fishers have some fish fingers delivered. Fish fingers seem to be all anyone ever eats on this ship, from the dining room to the bridge.

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Fighting over a life west, never a good sign on a cruise ship.

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This was very enjoyable, but my favourite cruise ship puzzle is still the Heye by Anders Lyon. In that puzzle, the movie was Robin Hood, by the way 🙂

Soft Rock, 2020-07-19

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I couldn’t remember anything about the first time I did this puzzle, but I thought it must have been fun, and it was! Not the easiest puzzle I’ve ever done, it took me almost a week, but I loved it from start to finish. One piece missing.

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Soft Rock by RS Crisp, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 19, 2020.

There are, of course, lots of funny details. Here’s the classic husband-home-early scene.

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Baby is not happy with mom’s dancing partner.

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I think this may the only puzzle I’ve seen with drug use 🙂

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There was one more 1500 piece Heye that I did again, Ahoy!, but I forgot to take a photo. That also had a piece missing. Three 1500 piece Heyes, all with a piece missing, and all in triangular boxes. Coincidence? I think not 🙂 It’s more difficult to get the pieces back in a triangular box, and it’s not as secure as a normal puzzle box. Oh well, it was still fun to revisit some puzzles that did in 2007 and 2009.

Ahoy! and Soft Rock are from 2007, and New York from 2008. Heye always has a rather loose fit, but the ones from 2007 are extremely loose, wheras New York has a slightly tighter fit that was much more pleasant to work with. The current Heyes have a better fit than any of these, which is nice, because sometimes it feels like it’s all downhill with puzzle quality.

New York, 2020-07-11

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Another puzzle I got back after giving it away. There’s one piece missing, but it’s almost impossible to see on this photo.

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New York by eBoy, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 11, 2020.

I have to say the pixellated image is not my favourite, just as last time. I began to enjoy it a lot more after I was about halfway through.

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This may have been done specifically for Heye, or maybe they put the logo in an existing image.

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Divinità nel vestibolo, 2020-06-23

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A friend of mine brought back some puzzles that I had given away before my last move in 2013, and I decided to do them again.  When I last wrote about this, I had the brand down as Impronti Edizioni, but that was wrong. It’s part of a series called Art Stones (great quality, small boxes that don’t take up more space than they need to). I always thought Art Stones was an imprint of Ricordi Arte, but actually, there’s nothing on the boxes to indicate this. Both mistaking this for Impronti Edizioni and thinking Art Stones is part of Ricordi Arte must have come from the places where I ordered the puzzles since I used to list the details before I actually had the puzzles. More than one online store used to list Art Stones puzzles as Ricordi Arte, so perhaps there is some connection.

Anyway, Art Stones puzzles are no longer being produced (or at least, they are no longer availbale where I shop), which is unfortunate, because the quality is great and they have great images, too.

All the pieces are still there, and I was going to sell it, but I enjoyed it so much I’m leaning towards keeping it. I wrote about who the gods in the image are last time, so I’m not going to repeat myself here.

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Divinità nel vestibolo, Art Stones, 1500 pieces. Completed on June 23, 2020.

Sacred and Profane Love, 2020-05-16

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A panorama puzzle from Ricordi Arte with an image by renaissance painter Titian (Tiziano Vecelli). The painting is known as Sacred and Profane Love, although the name is first mentioned about 180 years after it was painted and may not be correct.

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Sacred and Profane Love by Titian, Ricordi Arte, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 16, 2020.

I don’t usually mind missing pieces, but I would very much have preferred the missing piece to be from the dark areas of the puzzle and not from the face of a major character. To add insult to injury, I found the piece after I had already passed on the puzzle marked it “one piece missing”. I took the puzzle to the recycling room in our building, and about 10 days later I found the piece. I did post a message in our building Facebook group hoping to reunite the piece with the puzzle, but whoever took it didn’t see it. I’m so sorry I ruined this puzzle 😦

It’s a long time since I’ve done a Ricordi Arte, and the pieces were thinner than I remember, but good quality, and a very good mix of piece shapes. There were some differences in shades in the darker parts, too, and it was quite enjoyable and not too difficult as a puzzle.

Escape / Exit Update

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I’ve now finished the two 368-piece Exit-puzzles, Greenhouse and the Toy Factory. Turns out, they are exactly like the 759-piece ones …

… only with really big pieces. Below my car key as a measuring stick.

I actually preferred the larger piece count, there was more puzzling and less math in those. I also decided I won’t be making indicidual spoiler pages for these puzzles, but I’m still happy to send out photos of the booklet and the solution in the envelope, if someone happened to buy the puzzles used and they’re missing.

The puzzles as such are still nice, and I actually liked the backstories in both of these. The Toy Factory puzzles even featured some demonic toys:

There are actually three more of the 368-piece puzzles already available for preorder, and I will probably be getting those as well.

Jyty – Union of the Century, 2020-08-06

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For some reason, I like promotional puzzles. This puzzle was released in honour of the 100th anniversary of a trade union representing local government workers in Finland (Jyty is the acronym in Finnish).

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Jyty – Union of the Century, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 6, 2020.

Below Jyty, it says “Union of the century”, and below that “impressive (or influential) past – bright future”. The first word conveys that the work of the union to improve working conditions has been successful, but I can’t quite find the right word in English.

There was no indication of who had produced the puzzle, but it says “Made in Finland” on the box, and the quality is very like Peliko, which means fair but not good. Pieces will fit where they don’t belong, but there’s a good mix of piece shapes. Only the dark area at the bottom was difficult, otherwise, it was quite a pleasant puzzle. I like the idea of having people in historical dress on the left and modern dress on the right. The building behind the 20th Century workers is Helsinki City Hall, but I don’t recognize the modern building on the right.

More Exit Puzzles

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I started on my new Exit puzzles! The Unicorn in the middle is the ninth puzzle in the series, and so far the last with 759 pieces. The newest puzzles in the series have only 368 pieces, but the puzzles are as big as the ones with a larger piece count. The pieces must be huge, because the 759-piece puzzles already have pieces that are bigger than normal.

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I finished the Unicorn, and there is now a dedicated spoiler page for it. I managed to lose a piece, but otherwise, it was perhaps more enjoyable than I had expected. The backstory is that in an enchanted forest in Ireland, I come across a sad unicorn that has lost its magic after fighting an evil wizard. So, of course, I have to help the unicorn.

I haven’t started on the “smaller” ones yet, but I’ll be very intersted to see if they work the same way as the earlier puzzles in the series, or if there is something new. I can’t really go into details without spoilers 🙂

Sailing Ship, 2020-06-13

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Great, older Ravensburger from 1984. I bought this knowing there was one piece missing, but it was still a joy to put together. I just love the unique pieces where you always know if a piece belongs or not and the perfect fit.

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Sailing Ship by Roger Chapelet, Ravensburger, 1500 pieces. Completed on June 13, 2020.

There was no mention of the artist on the box (only of the photographer), but fortunately, the signature is very clear. The artist is French maritime painter Roger Chapelet, and the ship is called Terpsichore.

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I couldn’t find this painting online, but I found a similar one with a different ship by the same painter, and that was said to depict Hong Kong. I think this is also Hong Kong, it’s definitely in East Asia, as you can see from the Chinese junks in the harbour.

Great puzzle, I’m getting more and more fond of maritime images.