Tag: 2008

Balancement, 2017-11-05 & 2009-03-03

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This is one of my favourite puzzles. I’ve completed it twice, and I expect I will do it again one day.

 

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Balancement by Kandinsky, 2000 pieces, Ricordi Arte. Completed on November 5th, 2017.

 

Some of my friends have completed it too, and strangely, some find this puzzle very hard, while I think it’s quite easy. It’s never occurred to me before that puzzle difficulty level isn’t an absolute, but that different people find different things difficult. I would love to know why this puzzle seems so much harder to some than to others.

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The image on the box has faded so much that colourwise, it’s not much use anymore, but on the puzzle itself, the colours are still vibrant. Somehow you can’t see that in the photos, but the colours really look quite different on the box.

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There are a number of all-black and all-white pieces, but there is so much variety in piece shape that it’s not a problem. On the photo, the black pieces are already sorted by shape.

A couple of photos from the first assembly in 2009.

United Dragons of Europe, 2008-07-20

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A Heye cartoon puzzle with a map of the European Union. My copy is from the 2007 edition, but you can tell from the image that it is older, as many countries are missing.  Finland and Sweden joined the union in the mid-90s, and they are not present here. The puzzle was originally released in 1991.

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United Dragons of Europe by Marino Degano, Heye, 4000 pieces. Completed on July 20th, 2008.

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).

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.

The Hunter, 2008-12-29

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Here’s one that I missed when I was writing up the Egyptian fakes. A mosaic-style pharaoh (?) hunting.

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The Hunter, Sunsout, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 29th, 2008.

This was the first Sunsout puzzle I ever did, and I was amazed at the irregular cut. This was the first time I’d seen that, and since Eurographics cuts are also somewhat irregular, I thought all American puzzles had irregular cuts instead of the “European” grid cut. While this is hardly wild, it still made the puzzle quite challenging for me.

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Wanted!

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Wanted was a Heye series, where you are supposed to identify a criminal hiding in the puzzle but not present in the picture on the box. Fortunately, my photos are so bad that they can’t possibly count as spoilers 🙂 Also, this series is out of print.

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Wanted! Where Is Jail Katie? by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 11th, 2008.

This edition was published in 2006, but there was an earlier version, without criminal Katie, and it was called Apocalypse, 2000 pieces, released in 2000 in a triangular box. The Apocalypse version has been re-released and is currently available.

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Wanted Where is Passport Forger Paul? by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on October 6th, 2008.

The same image has been released as a Heye puzzle twice before, in 1982 with the title “Riverside” (1000 pieces), and in 1998 with the title “French Kiss” (750 pieces). The 1982 version is already in a triangular box. I wonder when they started using those. I would have guessed the 90s, but obviously, they’ve been around a lot longer.