Great collage with book covers by Edward Gorey. Loved it!
Dracula is my favourite as an image, although I did the black and white images last.
There weren’t a lot of books that I knew in this collage, but at least I know this one!
Many of the books are non-fiction.
Gorey’s black and white covers are especially gorgeous, although more difficult to puzzle than the ones with more colours.
A painting by Bruegel from 1560 with children playing. The painting is incredibly detailed, and it worked well as a puzzle, although towards the end I relied on the box quite a lot.
Even though the painting is over 450 years old, there are games that I recognize from my childhood. The two “riders” are trying to pull the other one from their “horse”, and whoever stays in the saddle longer wins. Here the horse is formed by two children, but our “horses” were just one person and the “rider” rode piggyback. It was quite similar to this game.
This is not something that we used to do, but I think the children sitting down are trying to trip up the ones going through. There were lots of fun details, but definitely didn’t understand all of the games.
Wonderful collage of British food and drink, from very old classics like haggis to more recent (at least in Britain) favourites like Chicken Tikka Masala. Thoroughly enjoyable as a puzzle, and also great quality. Gibsons is a bit of a mixed bag quality-wise, the previous Gibsons puzzle I did was shoddy with a poor fit, but this was excellent. I’m keeping this to do again.
Cakes, cheese, chicken tikka masala and drinks.
Sausages, tarts and tea time treats. I always love puzzling cake.
More cakes!
Lovely 500-piece Ravensburger. I’ve never been fond of doing vegetation, and my only complaint with these pretty cottage images is that I usually would prefer more cottage and less vegetation.
I’ve arrived safely in Dortmund, and for my first puzzle I did this lovely puzzle with lots of text and great vintage images of trains. It’s only 500 pieces, but the pieces are really big, and the finished puzzle is as big as a normal 1000-piece puzzle. The cut was random, but not all that wild. Definitely a keeper!
It’s difficult to pick favourites from these images, but I really enjoyed these three:
Today, me and my car are on a ferry to Travemünde, finally on our way back to Germany, after 6 months in Helsinki. If all goes well, I should be in Dortmund tomorrow.
Until then, here’s a promotional puzzle from 1984 by Viking Line, who operates ferries between Finland, Sweden and Estonia (although they probably didn’t go to Estonia in 1984). This was, and probably still is, the greatest draw for kids on the ferry, the ball pit. There is one on the ferry I’m on as well, but they probably won’t let me in 🙂 There is no mention of what ship this photo was taken on, but it’s not unlikely that I’ve travelled on it. Oh, and hurrah for companies who use Ravensburger for their promotional puzzles, making them a pleasure to put together. I have another Viking Line Ravensburger, 1000 pieces, still in my to do pile.
Two pieces missing, but I don’t care, this was a blast!
My first Buffalo puzzle! It’s an American brand, and none of my usual online shops carry them, and I think this was the first I’ve seen on the second hand market in Finland. Too bad, because I like the quality. Good mix of piece shapes and great fit, would love to do more of these. Two pieces missing.
This lovely cartoon map of Helsinki was commissioned by the Helsinki tourist board for the 1952 Olympics. It was never used at the time, but fortunately, the Helsinki City Museum later released it as a puzzle. It was actually quite difficult even though I know the city well. One missing piece.
The Zoo, located on an island. Since 1972 there is a bridge, but in 1952 the Zoo was only accessible by ferry.
Suomenlinna, the 18th Century sea fortress is still one of Helsinki’s most popular tourist attractions.
Places are marked on the map with numbers, but there was no key to these on the box. Here, number 4 is the Helsinki Cathedral, 6 is the University and 7 is the National Library. The statue of a lady in the foreground is Havis Amanda (or Manta for short), a much loved lady at whose feet great sporting victories are often celebrated.
Fantastic painting by American artist Keith Mallet. The photo doesn’t quite do justice to the gorgeous colours.
The puzzle was my first of the Turkish brand Anatolian, and the quality is great. The pieces are sturdy and the fit is good, pieces only fit where they belong, and there is a good mix of piece shapes. It says Anatolian on the box, but some stores list Anatolian puzzles as Perre – maybe two brands from the same manufacturer, or they changed the brand name. Anyway, I was very happy happy with this, even though it was more difficult than I had anticipated (story of my life…).
Vintage Ravensburger from 1976 with a map of Sweden, regional traditional dress and regional flowers. This was a lot of fun, and great quality, of course. All the pieces are still there, but along the bottom there is some damage that looks like it was done with adhesive tape, and a few pieces probably got wet at some point. All in all a great puzzle!
Puzzler1909 