The Tower of Pisa

I’ve never been to Pisa, but I found two versions of the Tower of Pisa among my puzzle pictures. The cartoon:

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Pisa in Motion by RS Crisp, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on October 27th, 2007.

And the traditional one:

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Pisa, Clementoni, 500 pieces. Completed on July 19th, 2018.

Both good puzzles 🙂

An Old Friend

I want to introduce you to the only puzzle I have kept from my childhood. It was my favourite for many years, and I’ve assembled it countless times.

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The pieces are thin, not great quality, but I just always loved the colourful image.

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It takes me about half an hour to complete. It’s a miracle there’s only one piece missing after all this time. Some other pieces are quite worn, but it still comes together quite nicely.

There is no date on the puzzle, but it must be from the 70s. On the top left it says “Moulin Rouge”, and on the side of the float below it says “Spring time in Paris”. The coat of arms could possibly be a simplified version of the coat of arms of Paris:

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The fleur-de-lis (stylized lilies), and a ship on a red background are common to both images. (The Latin phrase means “It is tossed [by the waves] but does not sink”.)

Astronomical Clock (Prague), 2018-08-25

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Astronomical Clock, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 25th, 2018.
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The lower sphere was the easiest.

This wasn’t easy, but not terribly difficult either. Great Ravensburger quality, of course.

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Not at all coincidentally, I visited Prague in the middle of working on this puzzle (work, not pleasure). The actual clock was being repaired at the time.

Tanlay Castle, In Progress

I started on the Play Time puzzle I got last weekend. I think Play Time is no longer active, but it was a Dutch manufacturer. I couldn’t find anything about the puzzle online, except a picture on a Polish puzzle forum, where someone had finished it.

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All the pieces have the same basic shape with two pegs opposite, and despite the “Deluxe quality” badge on the box my expectations weren’t high.

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I started with the branches in the top right-hand corner. It went better than expected, it came together quite easily.
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Then I pulled all the sky pieces, and things got a whole lot harder.
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There were a couple of white clouds, but after that, it got pretty difficult. The pieces in a row alternate with one piece having the pegs pointing sideways and the next having the pegs pointing up and down. You can tell the orientation from the pieces, so I eventually separated the types into separate piles.
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Even when I found a piece that fit, I couldn’t be certain it belonged there. I’ve seen worse, but it was not good. Even if I made sure the piece fits exactly with two (contiguous) pieces, it still happened that it turned out to be wrong. With only six pieces to go there was still something wrong and I couldn’t get the final pieces to fit. I took out about five pieces and did it again…
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… and got lucky! Sky finished! I’m now confident I will finish this puzzle, I wasn’t certain before.

More shopping

On Saturday I enjoyed myself so much looking for puzzles that I went back for more on Sunday.

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Lighthouses by Clementoni. Factory sealed and great images!
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The Royal Castle Drottningholm in Stockholm, Sweden.
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I like these old views of cities, this is probably from the 60s or 70s, Edinburgh. I don’t think I’ve ever had puzzle by Ingham Day before.
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The pieces are stored according to section, so this is probably not going to be too difficult, regardless of quality 🙂
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This has no title, and the Dutch brand, Wild Horse, is unknown to me. I got this for free, otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken it.
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Another unknown brand, Sure-Lox, is apparently Canadian. The picture is of the Royal Palace in Madrid.
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Some Star Wars fun courtesy of FX Schmid.
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And one more Tactic puzzle. I will be writing more about this soon.

My First Larger Puzzles

Although I’ve been puzzling for as long as I can remember (I was born in 1968), I only started photographing puzzles occasionally in the mid 90s. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to date the pictures. Below is the first 5000-piece puzzle I ever completed, Park by Ravensburger. Not the easiest picture, but I got almost all my puzzles from flea markets at the time, so I did whatever I happened to get. I don’t have it anymore, but apparently, if I did, I could make a nice profit out of it. Someone wanted 85 € for one over on Rare Puzzles. According to the same source the puzzle was produced in 1985.

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Park, Ravensburger, 5000 pieces, completed in the mid 90s’.

I also found pictures of another 5000-piece puzzle that I got for my birthday, although I don’t remember what year it was, but it will have been in the mid- to late 90s.

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Basilica di San Pietro in Rome, F.X. Schmid, 5000 pieces.

There was even a picture of me working on this puzzle, on the floor in my bathrobe 🙂

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About 20 years ago.

I also remember my first 3000-piece puzzle quite well, but I don’t have a picture of it. I found this one online:

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Autumnal Colours, Ravensburger.

According to this the puzzle was produced in 1986. I completed it in the late 80s. I also remember spilling coke on some of the pieces causing them to swell, but I still managed to finish. Since then I try to keep my drinks away from my puzzles 🙂

Palm Beach, 2018-11-18

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Palm Beach, Tactic, 500 pieces, completed on November 18th, 2018.

Tactic is a Finnish games manufacturer that also does puzzles. The quality is excellent, the cardboard is thick and pieces only fit where they belong. Unfortunately, I usually find the images quite boring, or too difficult, so that this is only my second Tactic puzzle. It’s too bad really, I would love to support a domestic brand. I feel they are probably better at other kinds of games, but it’s especially annoying when it’s just the images, everything else is fine!

UPDATE: Newer Tactic puzzles are sometimes very bad quality.

I bought this used, and I could see right away there was some damage. The picture had separated from the cardboard in two pieces.

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I did the sky first, then on with the sand. So far, the puzzle was really easy.

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The vegetation was the hardest part, but even that was not really hard.

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Here’s a closeup of the damaged section. Someone must have spilt a drink on this one, and the damage was quite bad. You have to use force to get the pieces into place, and when I take it apart it’s going to make the damage worse.

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Apart from the damage, it was quite enjoyable, but I think this puzzle has come to the end of its life cycle.

Shopping

Today I went to several different flea markets (some are like garage sales, some more like thrift stores) and managed to pick up 9 puzzles. I used to buy almost all my puzzles like this because I couldn’t often afford new puzzles. I got quite bored with Alpine landscapes. Then, for a long time, I bought only new puzzles, with exactly the motives I wanted. (This, in turn, resulted in my eventually having enough of old maps, but more about that later.) Anyway, now and then I  like to pick up some puzzles that I would probably never work on otherwise. Today’s haul:

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Definitely the best of the bunch. 3000 pieces, Clementoni. Good quality. I’ve never had one from the Mosaico-series before, only newer Clementoni puzzles.  Oh, and I’m fine with Alpine landscapes again. I’d just had too much at one point. This is going to Dortmund.
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Play Time is a Dutch manufacturer, and all the pieces are the same basic shape. Not too hopeful about this one…

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The 500-piece beach is a Tactic-puzzle. Tactic is a Finnish manufacturer, and the quality is good, but I usually find the images boring. This is only my second Tactic puzzle.

Next to it is a German puzzle, the manufacturer is called Spiel Spass (“Game Fun”), and this is the first puzzle I’ve had from them ( I always thought they only make children’s puzzles). It’s a triptych, with 500+1000+500 pieces, and it’s still factory sealed! It’s called Poppy Meadow.

The Schmidt puzzle is also factory sealed. The quality will, of course, be great, but it will not be easy…

I’ve done a Ravensburger Colosseum, and here’s a Clementoni version. A few clouds in that sky would not go amiss…

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I almost left the Educa with Sagrada Familia, it’s going to be difficult.

Variant is another Dutch brand, and I know it’s not going to be good. I’ve tried it before, but I can’t remember a particular puzzle. What I do remember is that the quality was not good. Still, nice image.

Finally, more Alpine views from Ravensburger. The box looks like it’s been through the wars, I’ll be amazed if all the pieces are there. This was the cheapest, 0,50 €, with the most expensive (the 3000 piece Clementoni) costing 3,50 €. Not bad!

Oktoberfest, 2018-11-16

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Oktoberfest by Christoph Schöne, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed November 16th, 2018. Sorry about the glare!

Another Heye cartoon puzzle. I did the sky first, but after that started putting small areas together all over.

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A roller coaster (obscured by the glare in the first picture).

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A Ferris Wheel.

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Large amounts of beer.

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Traditional gingerbread hearts.

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Visiting Scotsman.

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Unfortunately, I managed to lose a piece. Maybe it will turn up, but it wasn’t in any of the usual places.

 

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