Road Trip (yes, shopping again…)

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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:

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These are all factory sealed. The Olympic Stadium is probably horrible quality, but I like the image and for 1 EUR I’m definitely prepared to try it.
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Cranky ducks, ice cream and a Klimt painting (the Klimt is a Clementoni).

The prices were much lower than online or in Helsinki.

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In one charity shop, there was a puzzle out for the customers – the sign says “Let’s puzzle together!”. A 500-piece Ravensburger Neuschwanstein-puzzle (of course). I put one piece in.

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.

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My car. Isn’t it adorable?

eBoy

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Heye released at least three puzzles with artwork by eBoy, a pixel art group. I only found out just now that it’s an art project, while I was doing the puzzles I thought it was some old video game I didn’t know about 🙂

I had two of the puzzles, New York and Tokyo (there was also one called Rio).

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New York by eBoy, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on January 11th, 2009.
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Tokyo by eBoy, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 23rd, 2010.

Not my favourites, I guess I prefer clean lines to visible pixels 🙂

Good Morning or Good Night, 2019-02-27

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I’ve been buying quite a few of the Kaj Stenvall puzzles by Tactic, featuring Donald Duck lookalikes. Yes, that’s a black duck in the bed, although you can’t see it very well.

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Good Morning or Good Night by Kaj Stenvall, Tactic, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 27th, 2019.

I used to avoid these because of the large monochrome areas, but sometimes it’s nice to work on (moderately sized) areas where you have only the shape to go on, if the quality is good, of course. I only sorted the last 100 pieces according to shape, so this was actually pretty easy. And enjoyable.

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I did the orange bedspread first, then the darker pieces, then on to the white, and finally the last 100 pieces in between.

Eurowings Airbus with Borussia Dortmund Special Livery Starts in Düsseldorf, 2019-02-26

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Believe it or not, I actually shortened the original German title a bit 🙂  This is my second Calvendo puzzle, and it shows the Airbus with which the team of Borussia Dortmund fly to away games in. When it’s not used by the team, it’s used as any other Eurowings plane so that if you’re really, really lucky you can get to fly in it. Unfortunately, Eurowings doesn’t fly to Finland, so I’ve never had the pleasure, but I’ve seen it quite often in Düsseldorf. (The team flies from Dortmund, of course, but there’s a larger, international airport in Düsseldorf, which is where I fly to, and then I take a train to Dortmund. )

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Eurowings Airbus with Borussia Dortmund Special Livery Starts in Düsseldorf, Calvendo, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 26th, 2019.

As a puzzle, it was, of course quite difficult, with all the dark background. The Calvendo puzzles are good quality though, and it wasn’t too bad.

 

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There were about 150 pieces left when I finally had to sort the remaining pieces by shape.

I’m at the airport in Düsseldorf now, and thanks to this puzzle I only slept three hours 🙂 No sign of my favourite aircraft today, but here’s a picture I took in October:

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Pagoda and Palace

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Pagoda at the Black Dragon Pond in China (Old Town of Lijiang, Yunnan province).

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Pagoda at the Black Dragon Pond, Castorland, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 22nd, 2008.

Nice puzzle, not too difficult.

Pang Pa-In Palace in Thailand. My memory of this is at least as fuzzy as the image.

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Pang Pa-In Palace, Castorland, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 8th, 2008.

Dortmund, 2019-02-23

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A puzzle with my adopted home town, and a Ravensburger at that! There is so much variety in the sky and water that they were no problem – the buildings were actually more difficult.

 

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Dortmund, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 23rd, 2019.

I bought it in a hypermarket called real (yes, they write it like that), and it seems that the puzzle was commissioned by them:

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They probably have puzzles with local scenes in other places as well. Nice idea!

Gradient, 2019-02-22

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I was very unsure of what to make of this before I started, I thought it could be really difficult, or quite easy. Well, it turned out to be one of the easiest 1000-piece puzzles I’ve ever done! The brand, Cloudberries, was new to me, but it turned out to be good quality. Great cut (no fear of placing a piece wrong), cardboard not as thick as Ravensburger, but all in all good.

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This was one of the most straightforward assemblies ever, I started in the red corner…

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.., then worked myself down to the blue …

 

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… then sideways towards the green …

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… and last the yellow. This practically assembled itself!