Tag: 2012

German Champions 2011, 2012-05-22

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The 2018/2019 season is over, and Dortmund ended up second, which is much better than anyone would have expected last summer. Right up until the last game on Saturday we even had a slim chance of the championship, but Bayern would have had to lose their game, and they didn’t. It was the first time in ten years that the winner was not clear before the last round.

Anyway, here’s a puzzle with Borussia Dortmund celebrating the German Championship in May, 2011. Jürgen Klopp (now at Liverpool) led a very young squad to a completely unexpected victory. Only three of the players are still playing at Dortmund (although two more are still employed by the club in other roles, and at least one more is frequently seen in the stadium…).

Ravensburger usually do a puzzle of the Bayern Munich team every year (fair enough, Ravensburg is in Bavaria, but still…), but I know of only three Dortmund puzzles from Ravensburger: there’s a 500 piece puzzle of the team from the 1997/1998 season, there’s this, and then there’s a 1000 piece puzzle of the team from 2017/2018 (well OK, there are a few puzzle balls as well).

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German Champions 2011, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 22nd, 2012.

This is the only Ravensburger team puzzle (Dortmund or Bayern) that is not a boring portrait with the team organized in rows, which is just one reason why I love this puzzle. It really captures something of the celebrations, you can see how happy the team is, and below on the left the fans are holding up a choreo, while in the middle Kloppo is being thrown into the air. Obviously, the puzzle wasn’t available straight away, and by the time I completed it, in May 2012, Dortmund were already celebrating the next championship as well as winning the domestic cup (DFB-Pokal), the so called double. Unfortunately, Ravensburger didn’t see fit to mark the occasion.

Overall, I think Ravensburger could do much, much better with German football. There are occasionally puzzles of other teams (all of the players-in-orderly-rows type), but mostly it’s just Bayern. Instead of the team portraits they could do something more dynamic, like highlights of the season (perhaps even with some text). I would also love to see a series with German stadiums.

World Map, 2012-06-17

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A 3000-piece world map with far too much water. On old maps, they used to fill in with monsters and pictures of sea wrecks, much better than endless blue. Around the map, there are pictures of notable edifices (including Neuschwanstein, of course). Also, there’s a picture with the phases of the moon, but I can’t stop seeing it as a dial on an old telephone 😀

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World Map, Schmidt, 3000 pieces. Completed on June 17th, 2012.

1970s Sweet Memories, 2012-05-23

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I’m not a huge fan of Gibsons,  pieces fit where they don’t belong far too often, but they have some really great collages, and every now and then I cave and buy one anyway.

I know some of these, Mars looks exactly like it does now (although Bounty has changed dramatically), but most are unknown to me. Even with this image, I needed to stay alert so as not to place pieces wrong.

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1970s Sweet Memories, Gibsons, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 23rd, 2012.

The Largest One So Far

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The largest puzzle I’ve ever completed was The Garden of Earthly Delights, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, 10 000 pieces. It was produced by Educa in 1997, and it was, at the time, the world’s largest puzzle, at least according to the box. According to Rare Puzzles, there is a 9000-piece version available, but the 10 000-piece one is very rare. I still have mine, and I’m not selling 🙂

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The puzzle came in a wooden box.

I bought the puzzle in the late 90s, but it took me more than 10 years to work up the courage to actually assemble it. The pieces were in 5 bags of 2000 each. I didn’t mix the bags and essentially completed five 2000-piece puzzles. I started on November 29th, 2011, and finished on January 12th, 2012. Once I got started, I was amazed at how fast it went.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the different stages, just the completed puzzle:

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I have every intention of assembling this again one day – and then it will be much more difficult. I did not take it apart in sections, so next time it really will be one 10 000-piece puzzle instead of five 2000-piece ones…

17th and 18th Century World Maps

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Maps, especially old maps, used to be one of my favourite puzzle themes, but eventually, I got a little tired of them. The same thing happened before with Alpine landscapes, but I would be happy to do either of those again.

World maps from the 17th and 18th Century usually show the two hemispheres as circles, and around everything, there are various illustrations, sometimes of ancient gods and myths, sometimes of scientists or scenes from world history. The world looks pretty much as it does on modern maps, except that Australia is usually missing, or at least severely disfigured. The first known landing in Australia by Europeans was by a Dutch ship in 1606, and even before that there were theories that there is an undiscovered southern continent (often present on maps as Terra Australis, Southern Country).  Information about the landing was probably not immediately available to the map makers at the time, and even if it were, it wasn’t nearly enough to produce realistic maps. Also, India often looks way too small, and the far east is somewhat disfigured. But all in all, you know it’s our earth, not, say, Middle Earth of Tolkien. Which can not be said for some of the really old (mediaeval) maps…

Here are some old map puzzles:

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World Map 1630, Ravensburger 5000 pieces. Completed on May 18th, 2012. With scientists in the corners.
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There’s even an in-process picture. Just getting started here.
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Copy of Map of the World, 1639, Castorland, 1000 pieces. Completed on November 11th, 2007. Really bad photo, sorry.
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Historical Map of the World, Schmidt, 1000 pieces. Completed on November 7th, 2007. This photo is even worse…
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Historical Map of the World, Ravensburger, 5000 pieces. Completed on June 14th, 2008.
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Map of the Earth 1749, Trefl, 3000 pieces. Completed on November 18th, 2011. One piece missing. But look! There’s Australia!
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Copy of Antique World Map, Castorland, 1500 pieces. Completed on November 29th, 2011. No date on this one, but I’m guessing the 18th Century. The text is in French, not in Latin.
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Copy of World Map, Castorland, 2000 pieces. Completed on May 27th, 2012. Strictly speaking, this doesn’t really belong here, it looks like a modern map made up in the old style. There are pictures of famous buildings, including the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, where construction started in the late 19th Century. (It’s still not finished…)