Tag: 2018

Tanlay Castle, 2018-11-25

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I managed to finish the Play Time puzzle.

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Tanlay Castle, Play Time, 1500 pieces. Completed on November 25th, 2018.
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After I finished the sky I did the grass in the lower right-hand corner.
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Then I just put in pieces here and there. The reflection in the water and the shadowy parts of the buildings were the last things to be filled in.

After the sky, the puzzle was pretty easy. The reflection is blurry enough that it was easy to tell what belonged to the real thing and what to the reflection (not always the case).

Even in the easy parts it sometimes happened that pieces turned out to be placed wrong. If you place a piece in a “corner” formed by two other pieces, you shouldn’t have to worry that the piece is wrong so that you can’t find the next piece – or the piece after that. Even in good quality puzzles, it happens that the piece is wrong, but usually, the wrongly placed piece has exactly the same shape as the right piece. This is not a problem, because you can still finish the puzzle without problems. It’s happened to me several times that I finish a puzzle, and then I can see that two pieces (usually in the sky) need to be switched.

The pieces themselves were sturdy, which helps a bit. Knowing whether or not a piece is correctly placed is even harder if the pieces are very thin.

I might do another Play Time puzzle, but it would have to be a great image, and definitely a lot less sky!

The Tower of Pisa

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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

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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.

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.

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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Collage of Operas, 2018-09-06

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Collage of Operas, Educa, 3000 pieces, completed on September 6th, 2018.

I had actually decided not to get anymore Educa-puzzles because the pieces too often fit where they don’t belong, which I hate. Then I saw this, and thought, well, maybe just one more 🙂 With virtually no monochrome areas and very distinct details it is less of a problem that pieces fit in the wrong places, and I love the image.

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I don’t often have pictures of unfinished puzzles from before I started this blog, but here’s one.