The London underground by de-lux, a brand I’ve never heard of. I must say I was sceptical, but it turned out to be fine. Sturdy pieces and grid cut with enough variety in piece shape.
London Underground Map, de-luxe, 500 pieces. Completed on May 31st, 2019.
I’ve done one underground map before (of Paris), and I think there were a lot more all-white pieces then. As you can see, there weren’t that many here. Anyway, definitely saved the edges for last.
The red line is Central line, and the blue line below represents the Thames. I think it’s kind of sweet to have a stylized version of the river on the map 🙂
Tactic had a series with album covers of Finnish bands, where you get a 300 piece puzzle and the album as a CD. The series has been discontinued, but you can still find them second hand. Most of the covers don’t make great puzzles (so much black), but this was interesting.
The band, Sielun Veljet (Soul Brothers, although “soul” doesn’t refer to a type of music in Finnish, and their music was definitely not soul), is one of my all-time favourites and one of the most successful Finnish bands ever. Most of their stuff is in Finnish, but this album has English lyrics. You can probably guess that their music is quite strange from the title: Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars. They were impossible to put into any one genre, and the word “shamanistic” was often used when someone tried to describe them. They were also a brilliant live act!
Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars by Sielun Veljet, Tactic, 300 pieces. Completed on May 28th, 2019.
The edges, as well as top and bottom, were really easy, the rest took a while, but it was only 300 pieces, after all.
The box contains the puzzle and a CD.
On the back of the box is this brilliant image that I used to have on my wall in the 80’s. I was so happy to see it again!
Two weeks ago I mentioned on the blog that the ice hockey world championship was about to start. Well, against all odds, Finland won! None of the big Finnish NHL stars wanted in, and 18 of 25 players were first-timers. Still, they managed to beat Sweden (21 NHL players), Russia (title favourites) and finally Canada in the final. In the end, hard work and team play beat star-studded opponents. Amazing!
Also, I managed to finish my Egyptian collage. The section below on the right, Tutankhamun in the middle and the two sections above and below him turned out to be pretty easy. For the remaining five I could sort the pieces into two piles, one for the two images with grey stone and one for the three remaining images with yellowish stone. It wasn’t all that easy, but still enjoyable from start to finish!
Collage – Egypt, Grafika, 2000 pieces. Completed on May 27th, 2019.
Grafika has a huge, 48 000 piece puzzle with images from around the world. I’m not up for that, but the images are also available as 1000, 1500 and 2000 piece puzzles. This is the image for Japan.
Travel Around the World – Japan, Grafika, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 21st, 2019.
Not my usual style, but this was part of a lot of eight puzzles. The brand, Play Time, is not good (pieces fit where they don’t belong), but with only 250 pieces it wasn’t much of a problem.
Horses, Play Time, 250 pieces. Completed on May 18th, 2019.
I’m in Dortmund again, and I managed to finish the latest duck-puzzle. The white/grey areas were all right, but the wall was pretty difficult, especially the last 200 pieces. Having only the basic piece shape with no variety made it worse, but fortunately, the colour is not completely uniform, and you could also see the texture of the painting.
The Spirit and the Material of the Bottle by Kaj Stenvall, Tactic, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 12th, 2019.
I checked my other puzzles in the series, and of the ones I have, there’s only one more of the “only two tabs opposite” type, and that’s not as difficult as this one. There are a couple with a lot of white, though …
This puzzle showing the Kremlin in Moscow was thoroughly enjoyable. Colourful buildings and excellent quality by Clementoni, although on some tabs the image layer has separated a bit. I completed it in one sitting.
Moscow, Clementoni, 500 pieces. Completed on May 8th, 2019.
An old puzzle, probably from the 60s. The brand is Ingham Day, presumably British. The quality was not stellar, pieces would fit where they don’t belong, and the cardboard was very thin. The pieces were stored in four bags, marked “left”, “centre”, “right” and “sky”, and this obviously made it a lot easier.
Travellers Joy: Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Ingham Day, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 8th, 2019.
I did the left section first, and the last piece did fit in the vacant slot, but the colouring was wrong. Turned out the piece belonged in the right-hand section, but it was obviously placed here during the previous assembly.
I like doing these vintage street views occasionally, even though the quality is often quite bad.
I also managed to identify the church that the van belongs to: it’s Carrubbers Close Mission 🙂
Another wooden puzzle, this time very small. Only 30 pieces. Puzzle Michèle Wilson is a French brand of wooden puzzles. This is one of their smallest puzzles, the largest one is 5000 pieces (and it costs 870 euros!). Anyway, I thought I’d try a small one. I’ve seen photos of some of the large ones, and they look to be less interlocking than this.
Concentric Circles by Kandinsky, Puzzle Michèle Wilson, 30 pieces. Completed on May 3rd, 2019.
I have another puzzle with the same painting, a Ravensburger.
The box says “Handmade in France with 💛”Like with Victory puzzles, the fit is very loose.
I have to say, I’m not all that impressed with the wooden puzzles I’ve tried. Maybe for the best, considering what they cost 🙂
Puzzler1909 