I would love to do more Alice in Wonderland-themed puzzles, but there aren’t that many, and even fewer with the original (or original style) illustrations that I prefer. I just had to get this, even though I rarely buy new puzzles with less than 500 pieces.
This had 300 enormous pieces, the puzzle is almost as big as a normal 1000 piece puzzle. The fit was a bit too tight for my taste, but it was still very enjoyable.
This was fun! There are plenty of funny and/or artistic old advertisements here, and I enjoyed it immensely. Even so, I would have preferred either a larger piece count or fewer images, some of there are quite tiny.
I think this enthusiastic bobby is my favourite. If anyone knows what ICA stands for in this context, I would very much like to know. I assume it’s not the Swedish chain of supermarkets, and Google was not helpful.
Some of the ads are less than persuasive:
Some random men use Shell? Count me in!
The images used range from the very traditional, like this lovely image of Britain that looks decidedly 19th Century …
… to the more futuristic. I really like this abstract engine.
There are many ads that tell us who prefer Shell, above it’s motorists, there are also farmers, and below seamen:
But the most surprising thing I learned was that robotic judges who escaped from a horror movie also prefer Shell:
And what on earth is that tree trunk doing in front of the judge? I guess I’ll never know 🙂
Since I switched to posting twice a week in November 2019 after posting daily for a year, I’ve built up about 30 extra posts. I’m now going to post one puzzle a day in January, and in February I will go back to my normal schedule (definitely every Friday and mostly on Tuesdays as well).
Here’s a vintage Heye from 1988, my last puzzle for 2020, to start off with. Two pieces missing, but this was a joy to put together. The cut was probably the best I’ve ever seen in a Heye, with very distinct piece shapes.
I didn’t understand the title at first – I mean, there was a lot of of 2000-stuff in the late 90s, but this is from 1988. And then I noticed, the sea is not water, but oil:
So, a warning about what our beaches may look like in 2000 if pollution continues, I presume.
A wonderful Marino Degano image from 2006. I bought this used on ebay, but it turned out to be complete. The edges were in a separate bag, and since there’s a border, I did them last.
Some of the pieces were strangely discoloured, and this can be seen most clearly in the areas where you could see a background colour, like on the image below. The pieces have definitely not gotten wet, because in my experience that always leaves some permanent swelling, and the only other thing I can think of is light. But that doesn’t make much sense either, because it looks like only some pieces have been exposed to light. I could understand discolouration by fading if the puzzle had been mounted at some time, but that wouldn’t affect some pieces this randomly. If anyone has a theory what caused this, I would love to hear it. It did make the background areas a bit more difficult than they would otherwise have been – in busy puzzles like this they’re usually the easiest part.
Otherwise, the puzzle was not all that easy, but a joy from start to finish. In case I’ve not mentioned it often enough, Marino Degano is my favourite Heye artist.
La mamma at her stove:
The ketchup police writes a ticket…
… although there seem to be more serious crimes to investigate:
In Degano puzzles I always look for evidence of football, and I usually find it:
All in all a great puzzle, I loved working out all of the funny scenes.
I’m not a huge fan of traditional Christmas images, but some always find it into my pile regardless. Merry Christmas!
This was my first eeBoo-puzzle. They’ve recently become available on Puzzle-Offensive, where I often shop, and since they have many lovely images I decided to try one.
The finish is probably the shiniest I’ve ever come across. There was a good mix of piece shapes, but the precision of the cut wasn’t great – it wasn’t always easy to know if a piece belongs or not. All in all it still added up to a nice experience. The eeBoo puzzles are pretty expensive (most American brands are expensive in Europe), but I may well get one every now and then, for the great images.
My first reaction when I saw the title was “what cats”, but there actually are a couple of cats there:
My third Art Puzzle, and this time the fit was good again. It was a bit off in my second one, but this was excellent quality. The image wasn’t all that easy, of course, the colours aren’t exactly bright, but it was still a nice puzzle. There were a lot of white pieces, even bits of the table looked white. A few words on the paper would have been nice 🙂
I have fond memories of this type of storm lamp, we had a lot of them at our summer cottage. We did have electricity, but not all that much, so we kept that for essentials like fridge and TV in order not to overload the system.
This is part of a Clementoni series of puzzles with what they call a “wood-effect”, and on the box it even says “Wood Puzzle”. It’s not of wood, though, just ordinary cardboard, and the “wood effect” consists of the pieces having grooves that make it look like wood:
I know I’ve said many times that I’ve never met a 500-piece Clementoni that I didn’t like, but I’m afraid that run came to end with this one. The image (of Venice) was darker than on the box, and the grooves affected the fit, so that it was difficult to know whether a piece belongs or not. Good thing I got this cheap. It seems the series has been discontinued, and I won’t be getting any more of them in any case.
This was a great puzzle, definitely a genuine image from an Egyptian Book of the Dead. Ani has arrived in the afterlife and is now to be judged by Osiris. I have no idea what that thing on Ani’s head is, but it looks like the flash on a police car to me 🙂
It was a fun as a puzzle, even though it’s not all that colourful, but there were a lot of different patterns. Loved it!
This is post number 500 on my blog! I missed my two-year anniversary at the end of October, despite WordPress reminding me, but here’s a dancing house to celebrate both post no 500 and two years 🙂
Funny image by RJ Crisp. I was surprised to find out that this house actually exists, in Prague. It’s usually called the Dancing House, althoug the American architect used the name Ginger and Fred as a working name (after Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, of course. More on wikipedia).
Some boys are mooning the city from a tram.
Hippes get a surprise hair cut.
Not a neighbor I would choose…
Great fun!
Puzzler1909 