Tag: 2019

The Zodiac, 2019-03-18

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Nice and colourful zodiac, bought used but complete. I’ve lost count of how many Educa puzzles I’ve bought since I decided I wouldn’t buy any more Educa puzzles 😀

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The Zodiac by Joel Nakamura, Educa, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 13th, 2019.

This had such distinct areas in various colours that I thought pieces fitting where they shouldn’t wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t for the most part, but you had to pay close attention especially with the sky and clouds. Educa often has brilliant images, too bad about the fit. I’m not sorry I got it, though, it was still the kind of puzzle that makes me happy.

In fact, the most annoying thing was the box, it had taken some damage, not bad, but just enough so that the box wouldn’t remain upright while empty. Oh, well.

Vintage Nancy Drew, 2019-03-11

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Vintage Nancy Drew, Cobble Hill, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 11th, 2019.

Book covers always make great puzzles, but this one was a bit more difficult than I expected. I started out with the titles, and that was easy, but the rest was a lot slower. The text “By Carolyn Keene” appeared so often it wasn’t much help 🙂 The irregular cut also increased the difficulty level a bit. I’ve always wondered about the piece count of irregularly cut puzzles, so I decided to count the pieces as I took it apart: there are 984 pieces.

Anyway, the covers are lovely, this is my favourite:

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La Goulue, 2019-03-11

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A 150-piece puzzle with tiny pieces, this was the last in the lot of four puzzles that I bought. The image is a poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec showing the famous can-can dancer Louise Weber, known as “La Goulue”, the Glutton (because she would swipe drinks from the customers while dancing).

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La Goulue by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Micropuzzle, 150 pieces. Completed on March 11th, 2019.

Instead of a box, there’s a plastic test tube. The puzzle has the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen, definitely smaller than the Educa miniature pieces:

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The quality was not good, but for a puzzle this small it was no problem. I originally intended to do this on a flight, and the pieces would easily have fitted on the tray, but then I thought of turbulence and decided to save it for later. Which was just as well, as we actually had some turbulence.

Samudra Beach, India, 2019-03-10

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Beautiful Indian beach scene. I seem to enjoy doing puzzles with water lately.

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Samudra Beach, India, Trefl, 1000 pieces. Completed on March 10th, 2019.

Trefl puzzles are quite cheap, and I’ve usually found them to be good value, but this time there were quite a few tabs where the top layer had separated. There are two on this photo:

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Anyway, still an enjoyable puzzle.

Mathmaniacs, 2019-03-05

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Done! This was a bit slow at first, but once I got going it was easy and very funny.

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Mathmaniacs by Ryba, Heye, 2000 pieces. Completed on March 5th, 2019.

On the left side, there are scenes from ancient history, and on the right side space travel and computers.

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Ryba’s Crazy Windows 🙂 There were two missing pieces, not three as the seller said.
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The stone age scene was released as a 500 piece puzzle a couple of years later without the screen or the menu bar on top. I didn’t understand the joke at first, but I think she’s saying she needs two dinosaurs to feed the family.

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The pope insists the world is flat.
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Panic in the engine room.

Eurowings Airbus with Borussia Dortmund Special Livery Starts in Düsseldorf, 2019-02-26

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Believe it or not, I actually shortened the original German title a bit 🙂  This is my second Calvendo puzzle, and it shows the Airbus with which the team of Borussia Dortmund fly to away games in. When it’s not used by the team, it’s used as any other Eurowings plane so that if you’re really, really lucky you can get to fly in it. Unfortunately, Eurowings doesn’t fly to Finland, so I’ve never had the pleasure, but I’ve seen it quite often in Düsseldorf. (The team flies from Dortmund, of course, but there’s a larger, international airport in Düsseldorf, which is where I fly to, and then I take a train to Dortmund. )

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Eurowings Airbus with Borussia Dortmund Special Livery Starts in Düsseldorf, Calvendo, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 26th, 2019.

As a puzzle, it was, of course quite difficult, with all the dark background. The Calvendo puzzles are good quality though, and it wasn’t too bad.

 

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There were about 150 pieces left when I finally had to sort the remaining pieces by shape.

I’m at the airport in Düsseldorf now, and thanks to this puzzle I only slept three hours 🙂 No sign of my favourite aircraft today, but here’s a picture I took in October:

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Dortmund, 2019-02-23

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A puzzle with my adopted home town, and a Ravensburger at that! There is so much variety in the sky and water that they were no problem – the buildings were actually more difficult.

 

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Dortmund, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on February 23rd, 2019.

I bought it in a hypermarket called real (yes, they write it like that), and it seems that the puzzle was commissioned by them:

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They probably have puzzles with local scenes in other places as well. Nice idea!

Gradient, 2019-02-22

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I was very unsure of what to make of this before I started, I thought it could be really difficult, or quite easy. Well, it turned out to be one of the easiest 1000-piece puzzles I’ve ever done! The brand, Cloudberries, was new to me, but it turned out to be good quality. Great cut (no fear of placing a piece wrong), cardboard not as thick as Ravensburger, but all in all good.

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This was one of the most straightforward assemblies ever, I started in the red corner…

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.., then worked myself down to the blue …

 

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… then sideways towards the green …

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… and last the yellow. This practically assembled itself!

Antiquity, 2019-02-21

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This is the one I wanted most of the lot of four. Ravensburger from 2006, wonderful quality. I would love to do more puzzles with Graeco-Roman images, but for some reason there are many more puzzles with images inspired by ancient Egypt. What there is of Greece and Rome is often in the form of baroque paintings.

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Antiquity, Ravensuburger, 500 pieces. Completed on February 21st, 2019. It says 500 pieces on the box, but it’s actually 572 pieces.

Oh, and I’m back in Dortmund again, there’s a game on Sunday 🙂