Quite busy racing scene, a bit difficult in the beginning, but it got easier fast. I love Loup’s funny, big-nosed characters. Unfortunately, I managed to lose a piece.
Monaco Classics by Loup, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on January 23, 2022.
A very busy pit stop.
A note to (now retired) German race car driver Michael Schumacher from his wife Corinna (it’s actually spelled with a double n) :-). While this 1500-piece version is from 2019, the image was originally released as a 2000-piece puzzle in 1997, when Schumi was still very much active.
UPDATE 26.1.2022: I found the missing piece. It was in the fridge…
I think this was my first Heye for this year. I’m sure there will be many more 🙂 While it’s not quite as busy as many Heye images, it was kind of difficult to know where to start. I ended up doing the sharks first (I’m pretty sure they’re sharks, although they behave more like dolphins, and there are way less teeth than in most portrayals of shark). After I got going, the puzzle was great fun!
Submarine Fun by Uli Oesterle, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on January 17, 2022.Lots of things going on inside the submarine, and I really liked how men and women seemed to be working together, and also wearing the same type of uniform. There’s plenty of leisure activities as well, as you can see.There was also plenty of action on the surface.
Heye has finally released their catalog for 2022. The bad news is, there will be no new Funky Zoo puzzle this year. I hope Degano hasn’t run out of ideas, because I really love that series. There will, however, be three new Zozoville puzzles that I’m definitely getting, and one gorgeous new Andy Kehoe (it’s on the front page of the catalog). In the re-release section there’s one 500-piece Loup and one 1000-piece Degano that I’m definitely buying, but all in all I guess I’m getting off light this year. Only six new puzzles that I absolutely must have 🙂
I’m back in Dortmund for two weeks, but before I left, I finished this puzzle:
Music Maniac by Mattias Adolfsson, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 1, 2021.
A lot of buttons in this one 🙂 About half was reasonably easy, but after that I relied on the box quite a lot. There were lots of fun details, but I think these female rocker figures were my favourites:
Close to the top there’s a small window, and you can see that the studio is mostly under ground:
Perhaps one pair of boots belongs to the owner of the studio, his place inside seems to be occupied by a dog.
A very busy pool image from the 80s. Although the copyright on the box says 2019, and the puzzle was produced in 2020, the same image has been used in a puzzle in 1987. It was fun, although I always end up relying on the box a bit more than I would prefer with these busy images. The quality of the puzzle was excellent, as has been the case with the newest Heyes.
Cool Down! by Blachon, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 9, 2021.
I was actually pretty sure the image was not from 2019 even before I looked it up – the phone does not look recent 🙂
Another great Marino Degano image, this time a bouquet of flowers with lots of bugs.
Flower’s Life by Marino Degano, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on September 2, 2021.
There are references to a lot of football teams in this, and this is the first time I’ve seen a reference to Borussia Dortmund in a Marino Degano puzzle: a bee is holding up a BVB flag! On either side there are fans of AC Milan and Chelsea, and I think the Allez les Verts points to French team St. Etienne. The reds with the You’ll Never Walk Alone-banner must be from Liverpool, although the song has been taken up by many other clubs, and is always sung seven minutes before kickoff in Dortmund.
Hippie bus and flower moonshine.
Again, there are refrences to existing websites: cucaracha.fr is again a site by Marino Degano, in French and looks like it’s for children. Projektraumobjekt.com also exists, and it’s some sort of interior design business in Hamburg.
Unfortunately, this was again one of the worst Heyes with regard to quality. Thin cardboard and pieces that wouldn’t lie flat made it difficult to know whether a piece belonged or not. I wanted to do the edges early but had to give up on that, the quality just wasn’t good enough. The date on the bag is October, 2016.
Another Funky Zoo puzzle, one of my favourite series. These are always so much fun, and this was no exception. One thing I missed was the cleaning lady that has been present in all other Funky Zoo puzzles I’ve done. Maybe she’s on vacation, although it wouldn’t surprise me if she quit, given the working conditions 🙂
Ocean Habitat by Marino Degano, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 31, 2021.
There were quite a few cats in this one 🙂
Someone’s been sent to sleep with the fishes:
As for the quality of the puzzle, I’m happy to report that it’s excellent. The date on the bag says October 2016, and I found none of the problems I’ve had with some 2015-2016 Heyes.
Another installment in Marino Degano’s Life series. As always, great fun!
Cat’s Life by Marino Degano, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 28, 2021.
A lot of fleas live on the cat, and they are trying to keep out the ticks and the mosquitoes:
Some ticks try to get in wearing false noses to look like fleas:
The fancy part of cat, but on the right, the builders have stumbled onto an old burial ground, and all of us who have seen Poltergeist know exactly where this is heading…
The Stray Cats are playing:
After I had another less than stellar quality Heye right before I left for Dortmund, I consulted my database and found that I bought 38 (yes, really) Heye puzzles in 2016 (which is when both of my disappointing Heyes were produced). I brought some of the ones I haven’t done yet with me, and this is one of those. The date on the bag is September 2015. The pieces are indeed quite thin, but the fit is very good, and the pieces also lie flat. Given a choice, I would always like that extra mm of thickness in the pieces, but overall, this is fine.
By the way, the cat is wearing a QR code around the neck. My phone couldn’t read it off the puzzle itself, but when I read it off the poster it worked. It leads to a website by Marino Degano, where he’s shared some early versions for some of his puzzle art. There are also a couple of online jigsaw puzzles (all part of the Dog’s Life puzzle). Sadly, it hasn’t been updated since 2016.
Great image by Loup. This came together much faster than I expected. Unfortunately, the quality wasn’t great. The pieces are thin, and the puzzle won’t lie flat, just like Rocket Launch, 2020-01-13. There was also a block of four pieces that were stuck together, because the cardboard had not been cut all the way through. Not what I expect from Heye. Like Rocket Launch, this puzzle is also from 2016, so Heye was definitely experimenting with lowering quality then. Fortunately, they seem to have got over it now. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way of telling which puzzles are like this, there are also versions of Rocket Launch that are perfectly fine. Quality may wary in different runs.
Ballooning by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 8, 2021.
This was my last puzzle in Helsinki for quite some time. On Wednesday, I’m finally beginning my vacation, and me and my car will again take a ferry to Travemünde, from where I will drive to Dortmund, where I’m planning to remain for about two months. I might have something to post in about a week.
Wonderful image in the Inner Mystic series by Andy Kehoe. Like the first Inner Mystic puzzle I did, this wasn’t half as hard as it looks. I did the middle without trees first, then I finshed the edges, and finally the trees.
Wondrous Journey by Andy Kehoe, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 30, 2021.
I absolutely loved this, the image is great, and the quality is fantastic. I had a bad experience with a recent Heye last year, but since then, every Heye I’ve done has been excellent. Interestingly, the quality of Heye is now better than 20 years ago when they had a very loose fit. I bet not many brands can say that they’re better now than 20 years ago 🙂
There are currently four puzzles in the Inner Mystic series and I have them all, but I’ve only done two.
Puzzler1909 