Cocktails, 2022-09-01

This was fun and easy! The rows having different background colours helped, too. I was happy to find that this had a random cut. With Eurographics, it’s either random cut, or a grid cut with just the basic piece shape, no variation.

Cocktails, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 1, 2022.

I actually really like fancy cocktails, but somehow, I seldom drink any.

Asian Oil-Paper Umbrellas, 2022-06-18

The image is fantastic, of course, but this was one of the newer Eurographics with all the pieces the same basic shape (two tabs opposite, two holes opposite). Eurographics has production in Europe as well, and they still have the true random cut that I associate with the brand. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to know what the cut is like before buying, especially if there is no image of the full box. I’ve also read that people have had issues with really bad fits lately, but this was was otherwise fine, just the boring cut I don’t like.

Asian Oil-Paper Umbrellas, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on June 18, 2022.

The Planets, 2022-03-03

Wonderful puzzle with planets and information about them. Pluto is included, although there’s a note that it is no longer considered a planet. There was lot’s of information about the planets, like mass and temperature.

The Planets, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 3, 2022.

I especially liked the panel on the left showing the relative sizes of the different planets. Here’s Jupiter, and underneath Mars is just a tiny dot:

This was one of the Made in Germany Eurographics, and while the cut is as good as ever, I noticed that they’re using thinner board than they used to. Not too bad, but obviously, I prefer the thicker board.

Suspense, 2021-09-12

Nice painting from 1894 by Charles Burton Barber, who was famous in his day for painting children and animals. Even Queen Victoria commissioned paintings from him, according to the box.

Suspense by Charles Burton Barber, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 12, 2021.

I’ve seen some discussion about deteriorating quality in Eurographics puzzles lately, but this was again excellent, with a random cut and excellent quality. Eurographics have production both in Europe and America, and this puzzle was made in Germany (a phrase I’m always happy to see on puzzle boxes).

My vacation is unfortunately over, so there will be fewer completed puzzles now that I’m working again.

The Canadian, 2021-09-07

My first attempt to buy this puzzle resulted in me getting just 100 pieces instead of 1000 (incredibly, the price was almost the same), but now I finally have the version I want. It was very enjoyable, I really like puzzles with vintage travel motifs. I started off with the text, and did the black parts last, of course. There were some colour variations in the black areas as well, the mountain on the left was a bluish black and the one on the right more grey, so that helped as well. I also like the random cut, although this is a rather tame random cut, not much different from a grid cut.

The Canadian, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 7, 2021.

Shell Advertising Collection, 2020-08-14

This was fun! There are plenty of funny and/or artistic old advertisements here, and I enjoyed it immensely. Even so, I would have preferred either a larger piece count or fewer images, some of there are quite tiny.

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Shell Advertising Collection, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 14th, 2020.

I think this enthusiastic bobby is my favourite. If anyone knows what ICA stands for in this context, I would very much like to know. I assume it’s not the Swedish chain of supermarkets, and Google was not helpful.

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Some of the ads are less than persuasive:

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Some random men use Shell? Count me in!

The images used range from the very traditional, like this lovely image of Britain that looks decidedly 19th Century …

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It says “See Britain first on Shell”, sorry for the crappy photo.

… to the more futuristic. I really like this abstract engine.

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There are many ads that tell us who prefer Shell, above it’s motorists, there are also farmers, and below seamen:

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But the most surprising thing I learned was that robotic judges who escaped from a horror movie also prefer Shell:

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And what on earth is that tree trunk doing in front of the judge? I guess I’ll never know 🙂

Kiss – The Albums, 2020-09-06

This was so much fun! I was a huge Kiss fan in the early 80’s, and I had almost all of the albums featured on the puzzle. I usually flip all the pieces before I start putting them together, but I couldn’t quite wait with this one, and there were so many pieces where I immediately knew what album they belong to.

Kiss – The Albums, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 6, 2020.
The pieces from Rock and Roll Over were perhaps the most easily recognizable.
Some of the albums were a bit too dark for the pieces to jump out at you. Dressed To Kill was one of the last albums I completed.
Creatures of the Night, one of my favourites.
The puzzle has none of the albums where the band appears without makeup. This one is called Unmasked, but that didn’t actually happen until 3 years later.

All in all, great fun, and a bit of a blast from the past. I don’t have any of these albums anymore, but they were still instantly recognizable.

The Periodic Table of the Elements, 2020-06-03

This is one of my all-time favourite puzzles. I’ve done it once before, but then it spent a lot of time in the library where I work and several other people did it, and I wanted to check that all the pieces are still there. They are! This will definitely not be the last time I do this puzzle.

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The Periodic Table of the Elements, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on June 3, 2020.

Evolution of Life, 2020-03-15

A great educational puzzle presenting the geological eras and when different forms of life evolved.

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Evolution of Life, 2020-03-15, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 15, 2020.

While there was lots of text, much of it is so small that you need a magnifying glass to read it. The maps on the left and the coloured squares on the right were rather easy, but the tableaus in the middle took a bit longer.

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After School Fun, 2019-12-29

This was a great puzzle except for the boring cut (all pieces with two tabs opposite). Fun image,  strong colours, and the quality was great. I was appalled that the children are playing hockey in the street, but at least they’re not wearing skates 🙂  Before I started working on this, I assumed they were on a frozen lake, but lakes don’t come with stop signs. The kid with #9 is wearing a jersey that looks exactly like the ones my favourite hockey team, HIFK, wears.

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After School Fun by Patricia Bourque, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 29th, 2019.

I had heard that new Eurographics have this boring cut, but this was my first experience with it. There are still 13 Eurographics puzzles in my to-do pile, no doubt some of them will have this cut as well, but not all. I bought this about a year ago, and my latest Eurographics purchase was about a month ago. I pulled out my newest Eurographics, and that still has the random cut that I’ve always associated with Eurographics:

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There’s also this on the box:

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From now on I’m going to assume that Eurographics has the boring cut unless I see this on the box. And if I find one of these cut with only two-tabs-opposite pieces, I’m going to complain about false advertising 🙂

Another thing a noticed: the one with the random cut is made in Germany:

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Eurographics puzzle that was made in Europe before, it’s always been Canada or the USA.

The puzzle with the boring cut is American:

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