The Zodiac, 2019-03-18

puzzler19093 Comments

Nice and colourful zodiac, bought used but complete. I’ve lost count of how many Educa puzzles I’ve bought since I decided I wouldn’t buy any more Educa puzzles 😀

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The Zodiac by Joel Nakamura, Educa, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 13th, 2019.

This had such distinct areas in various colours that I thought pieces fitting where they shouldn’t wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t for the most part, but you had to pay close attention especially with the sky and clouds. Educa often has brilliant images, too bad about the fit. I’m not sorry I got it, though, it was still the kind of puzzle that makes me happy.

In fact, the most annoying thing was the box, it had taken some damage, not bad, but just enough so that the box wouldn’t remain upright while empty. Oh, well.

Vintage Nancy Drew, 2019-03-11

puzzler19095 Comments
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Vintage Nancy Drew, Cobble Hill, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 11th, 2019.

Book covers always make great puzzles, but this one was a bit more difficult than I expected. I started out with the titles, and that was easy, but the rest was a lot slower. The text “By Carolyn Keene” appeared so often it wasn’t much help 🙂 The irregular cut also increased the difficulty level a bit. I’ve always wondered about the piece count of irregularly cut puzzles, so I decided to count the pieces as I took it apart: there are 984 pieces.

Anyway, the covers are lovely, this is my favourite:

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La Goulue, 2019-03-11

puzzler19098 Comments

A 150-piece puzzle with tiny pieces, this was the last in the lot of four puzzles that I bought. The image is a poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec showing the famous can-can dancer Louise Weber, known as “La Goulue”, the Glutton (because she would swipe drinks from the customers while dancing).

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La Goulue by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Micropuzzle, 150 pieces. Completed on March 11th, 2019.

Instead of a box, there’s a plastic test tube. The puzzle has the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen, definitely smaller than the Educa miniature pieces:

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The quality was not good, but for a puzzle this small it was no problem. I originally intended to do this on a flight, and the pieces would easily have fitted on the tray, but then I thought of turbulence and decided to save it for later. Which was just as well, as we actually had some turbulence.

Samudra Beach, India, 2019-03-10

puzzler19093 Comments

Beautiful Indian beach scene. I seem to enjoy doing puzzles with water lately.

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Samudra Beach, India, Trefl, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 10th, 2019.

Trefl puzzles are quite cheap, and I’ve usually found them to be good value, but this time there were quite a few tabs where the top layer had separated. There are two on this photo:

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Anyway, still an enjoyable puzzle.

Educa’s Miniature Pieces

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Educa has a series of 1000 piece puzzles with miniature pieces. The puzzles measure 30×45 cm, where a normal-sized 1000 piece puzzle would usually be about 50×70 cm.

I really like these miniature puzzles, you can take them with you while travelling, should fit on almost any hotel table 🙂

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Gaudí Collage, Educa 1000 pieces. Completed on January 15th, 2009.

The image shows various buildings by Antoni Gaudí.

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A piece on my fingertip to show the size.

Another miniature puzzle with beers:

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Beers, Educa, 1000. pieces. Completed on June 14th, 2008.

I’ve done two more Educa miniature puzzles, the first in the late 90s:

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I only had this picture but no info on the puzzle, but I found it on the jigsaw wiki! It was published in 1997 and it IS a miniature puzzle. I couldn’t be sure before.

The last Educa miniature puzzle that I did I still have. I completed it on May 4th, 2017, in a hotel room in Dortmund, on my last trip before I got my own apartment. It’s called Cans and shows a lot of soft drink cans. I actually have that image as a 2000 piece normal-sized puzzle as well. Anyway, unfortunately, no picture, because the phone it was on was so badly damaged that I couldn’t retrieve the photos on it (except some that had been stored as thumbnails. And yes, I did take it to a professional).

Custom Made Puzzle, 2013-09-02

puzzler19092 Comments

In the autumn of 2013, I took 18 months off work to study. As a going-away present, a colleague had a puzzle made for me. I work in a library, and the image is the return unit that sorts returned items into bins.

valmis
Definitely unique! 1000 pieces.

004c

005

006
I had a bit of an accident on the way …
palapeli
The box.

Mathmaniacs, 2019-03-05

puzzler19095 Comments

Done! This was a bit slow at first, but once I got going it was easy and very funny.

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Mathmaniacs by Ryba, Heye, 2000 pieces. Completed on March 5th, 2019.

On the left side, there are scenes from ancient history, and on the right side space travel and computers.

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Ryba’s Crazy Windows 🙂 There were two missing pieces, not three as the seller said.
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The stone age scene was released as a 500 piece puzzle a couple of years later without the screen or the menu bar on top. I didn’t understand the joke at first, but I think she’s saying she needs two dinosaurs to feed the family.

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The pope insists the world is flat.
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Panic in the engine room.