I found one more of the Stenvall duck puzzles, that’s 28 down, two to go! The last ones may take some time.
I’ll be out driving again for much of the weekend, but I’ll try to get some puzzling in as well!
Category: shopping
Duck Hunt Report
Collecting all of the puzzles in the Kaj Stenvall Collection is progressing well. I know of 30 puzzles, and I think that’s all there is, but I’m not certain. Anyway, I already have 27, so I’m (probably) only missing three!
I was especially happy to find a copy of one of the two 500-piece puzzles (I already had the other one). I was beginning to doubt whether it existed because I couldn’t even find a photo of it. Anyway, it does exist and I found it, factory sealed:
I made a page with a list of all the puzzles because I could have used one, but I didn’t find anything like that.
I Need to Stop…
There’s a charity shop near where I live in Helsinki. They hardly ever have good puzzles, but I check about once a month. I guess it was only a matter of time… I am seriously running out of space, I really need to stop buying puzzles. I only paid 6,50 EUR for all of these, so at least it was cheap. Also, I really like all of them, the cat was even on my wishlist.
Shopping in Dortmund
I haven’t been puzzling much for the last week, and I’m in Dortmund again. I’m working on one of the Ravensburger Exit puzzles, and it’s really slow going.
Anyway, yesterday there was a huge flea market in Westfalenpark with lots and lots of puzzles, but I only bought two:
Factory sealed spice collage and an interesting image of the Berlin wall from 1990. On the bottom there are the flags of Czechoslovakia (the same flag is now used by the Czech Republic) and East Germany, the year 1989 and the word “democracy” in German and Czech (I presume, I don’t understand Czech). It’s an MB puzzle, made in Holland. MB used to have production in Germany as well, but they’ve completely withdrawn from the European market, unfortunately.
One thing I didn’t see yesterday was a single Heye puzzle. Not one, with hundreds of sellers and lots and lots of puzzles. Not a single Heye. Perhaps professional sellers are there first thing and buy all the Heyes? The only place you can reliably find used Heye puzzles is eBay, and they’re not cheap.
I hope to have the Exit puzzle finished tomorrow, otherwise, there will be another old photo.
New Arrival
This week I’ve not placed many pieces, I’ve been at the Nightvisions film festival, and now I’m on my way to Dortmund, but nothing stops me buying more puzzles…
I got this second hand, but it’s still factory sealed. I feel like starting a big puzzle soon, perhaps not quite this big, but definitely something in the 4000-5000 range…
Road Trip (yes, shopping again…)
Despite being 50, I only very recently got a driver’s license and a car (I don’t really need one, it’s more of a luxury), and on Saturday I drove about 100 km north to Hämeenlinna and spent the day going through local flea markets looking for puzzles. Exercising enormous self-restraint I came back with only six puzzles:
The prices were much lower than online or in Helsinki.
One thing has started to bother me: where are all the Heye puzzles? I hardly ever see used Heye puzzles on offer in Finland, but I know many new ones are sold. I’ve bought Heye puzzles since the 90s, and the local store where I got Opus 2 always has all the new Heye puzzles. In fact, I talked to their jigsaw puzzle expert once (they have a lot of board games, not just jigsaws), and he confirmed that they always get all available Heye puzzles. So where do they all go? Perhaps they get sold on eBay for large sums? Still, not everyone would realize some Heye puzzles are valuable, surely? It’s a mystery.
Fraud!
Yesterday I found a new charity shop close to where I live in Dortmund. They get everything as donations, and the proceeds go to charity. They have no prices, you get to decide how much you want to pay. They have mostly books, but there were a few puzzles as well. It’s a really nice, cosy, place, and they offer coffee and cookies. I went in and got a book and two puzzles. One of the puzzles is a 500-piece Spielspass puzzle with 3D effects. As soon as I opened the box I could see something’s wrong:
That’s nowhere near 500 pieces! I counted them, there are 182 pieces in there. There was also a piece of cardboard in the box, otherwise, I might have reacted to how light it was, and I think that’s why the cardboard is there. I just can’t understand why someone would do something like this, it’s not like the charity shop pays anything.
Anyway, I’m not upset (just mystified), all that happened was that I gave some money to charity. There are worse things 🙂
I’m not going to try putting the existing pieces together, partly because there are less than half left, and partly because the pieces are all the same basic shape (boring and difficult). I usually don’t mind missing pieces, but this is just too much. It’s going in the bin, obviously.
I once did a puzzle with about 50 pieces missing (piece count about 1000-1500, I don’t remember exactly anymore) and I remember it fondly, actually. It was like a reminder that in puzzling, as in life, it is best to work with the pieces you have instead of looking to fill the empty places. I often think that the goal of putting a puzzle together is not to form a complete picture but to reduce the number of pieces until there is only one. That way it’s not a failure even if there are pieces missing. Except, of course, when there are so many missing pieces that you may end up with many small puzzle islands 🙂
The other puzzle I got seems fine:
I’ll miss out on the augmented reality bit since I don’t have an iPhone or iPad, but everything looks to be OK with this puzzle.
Finally here!
This was supposed to be delivered on Friday, but the package got damaged, and today I finally got the replacement. I knew I was going to get this puzzle almost as soon as I saw it, but there was no hurry. As you probably know, Amazon currently has some great deals on the really large Ravensburger puzzles, and, as always, I like to take advantage of free shipping while in Germany 🙂 I love the images with collages from various decades.
I’m not going to start on this yet, but I still had to open the box and go through the contents:
I can’t believe how huge it is!
A Blast from the Past (yes, shopping again…)
Twenty years ago everyone was getting ready for the new century and steeling themselves for the chaos that ensues when every computer everywhere goes haywire. There were some really interesting Sci-Fi films (ah, the age of The Matrix), and puzzle manufacturer Heye was also prepared. In 1999, I bought a “Happy New Year” type puzzle, which I completed around New Year. I don’t know where that puzzle went, but it was definitely gone in 2013 when I moved (obviously, I gave away a lot of puzzles ahead of the move, but this wasn’t among them). I always wanted it back, and now I have it.
I found it on Ebay, it was still factory sealed. This would actually work really well as a new year puzzle for any year, all they would have to do change is the title “Happy 2000”. Oh, and it glows in the dark! I’m doing this at the end of the year, for its 20 year anniversary.
Then I found another 2000-themed puzzle by the same artist (Jabo) on a Finnish eBay-equivalent site. This was also a lot cheaper than Happy 2000, but it must be quite rare, I can’t find it on eBay at all. Space Diner by Jabo, also factory sealed.
There seems to have been a series called Cosmo Puzzle 2000. I found some others by Googling, but I can’t remember having seen any of these puzzles before. The Jigsaw wiki knows of two further puzzles from the series. If I find any of the others at reasonable prices, I’m definitely getting them.
Less spectacular, but still nice:
Special Lovers by Matt (I guess artists didn’t have to think about googleability back then), also from 1999. I got this on the Finnish site as well, not factory sealed, but there was a picture of it complete.
1999 was obviously a great year for Heye puzzles 🙂
Shopping
I just bought two puzzles at the only thrift store I’ve found in Dortmund so far:
The absolute best news acquisition wise comes from Finland, though. I looked in on the website of my local puzzle shop in Helsinki, and they have Historia Comica Opus 2 in stock! I ordered it immediately, and also got the new Funky Zoo instalment, Australian Habitat. So, I’ll be getting my hands on those next week, probably.
Puzzler1909 