Another installment in the Funky Zoo series, I only have two left that I’ve not done yet. Unsurprisingly, I loved it!
Monkey Habitat by Marino Degano, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on August 3, 2024.
The movie of the evening is, of course, Planet of the Apes:
There is some conflict, with some people wanting to put up luxury apartments, and the monkeys defending their current habitat:
In the Banana Bar, some monkeys start on a new puzzle, and I can tell that it’s Dog’s Life (by Marino Degano, of course), and beside the table, there are some Funky Zoo puzzles – I think I can make out Nile Habitat (I’ve not done that one yet), and Black Forest Habitat (which I have done, but I have no photo of it).
Here are some old acquaintances, the cleaning lady and the woman who has dropped her baby:
I did this puzzle for the monthly puzzle challenge for August, which is:
(The monthly challenges are communicated only as images.)
Magnolia Puzzles was a new brand to me, but I had heard good things about it, and was not disappointed. It’s a Turkish brand with some interesting images and an excellent cut. There were absolutely no false fits, and the finish feels really nice. There was also no puzzle dust. The puzzles cost a bit more than Ravensburger, but if I look out for promotions, I can still get them for under 20 EUR.
Surrealist Cat, Magnolia Puzzles, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 31, 2024.
The box is a bit smaller than standard (a good thing), and there was a small bag with white powder in the box. This is almost certainly puzzle glue, unless I’ve unwittingly been caught up in drug smuggling 😀 Strangely, there is no mention of the glue on the box (maybe it’s not glue, it just occurred to me it might be there to soak up moisture), but there is a mention that they have a replacement service for missing pieces, which is nice.
This was a nice puzzle to do while watching the Olympics 🙂 It has XXL-pieces, and the finished puzzle is as large as a 1500 piece puzzle, but it’s only 750 pieces.
Athletic Fit by Mario Zucca, Ravensburger, 750 pieces.
So, I finally got one of these Water & Wines puzzles, and I’m afraid the only thing I really loved about it was the image.
Scotland Whiskey by Derek Fenech, Water & Wines, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 26, 2024.
As soon as I spread out the pieces I noticed that they were quite thin, and quite a few pieces had some lift. This is not what I would expect from puzzles that cost an eye-watering 45 EUR. I got this for 31,50 EUR, which is still about double what I would expect to pay for a Ravensburger.
Here you can see a few of the damaged pieces – there were many more:
When I had a closer look at the box, it actually says that the puzzle is made by Trefl, and indeed, the cut turned out to be a perfectly ordinary Trefl cut, which means it’s also a bit prone to the odd false fit. Now, don’t get me wrong – even the ordinary Trefl cut is ok, if you pay about 10 EUR for the puzzle, which is what they usually cost. Trefl also do some really nice cuts, for example the Crazy Shapes series have much sturdier pieces and a better cut with no false fits, and of course, they also have nice wooden puzzles. In fact, I’ve got a few 1000-piece Trefl wooden puzzles, both of which cost less than 45 EUR.
The finish of the puzzle is called velvet-touch, and while it feels nice, it’s somewhat impractical, since it makes it harder to slide a piece into place over other pieces. In the box, there is also a poster, and a stand for the box (both unnecessary in my view, but I know a lot of people like posters).
What we are left with here is a mediocre product at an astronomical price. On the Water & Wines logo, it says “Puzzles made with love by sommeliers”. I realize that the expertise of sommeliers doesn’t come for free, but this is way too expensive. Above all, they should also have employed someone who knows about quality puzzles, not just sommeliers. The only thing that really works here is the image.
I had almost given up hope of finding this puzzle. I occasionally do stock takes of all my puzzles based on my database, and a few years ago I noticed that this puzzle was missing. I searched for it both in Helsinki and in Dortmund, and now I finally found it – it had slipped behind some other puzzles on a shelf.
The puzzle was produced in 2014, and interestingly, it’s not the same type of fit or finish that Schmidt puzzles have now. The fit was looser, and the finish shinier than current Schmidt puzzles, in fact, it reminded me of Heye. I did know that Schmidt has changed, but I thought it was more than 10 years ago. Anyway, the puzzle was fun, if a little more difficult than I was expecting.
Magic Moment by Ciro Marchetti, Schmidt, 500 pieces. Completed on July 22, 2024.
This was a bit too busy for me, with lots of small objects. It was still enjoyable most of the time, even though I ended up looking at the box more than I prefer.
Fantasy Toy Shop by Aimee Stewart, Ravensburger, 2024. Completed on July 17, 2024.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Eurographics food collage, and I really enjoyed it. It was a fairly easy puzzle, made a bit more challenging by the random cut.
Chocolate Cupcakes, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 15, 2024.
Despite the dark and muted colours, this was a really nice puzzle. In a larger piece count, the image would have been too difficult. At the end, I had about 50 all black pieces, and also about 30 black edge pieces, but with great quality pieces and a good mix of piece shapes that wasn’t much of a problem. I did the black edge pieces last.
The Typewriter, Clementoni, 500 pieces. Completed on July 13, 2024.
I loved this! From the box, I was afraid that the image would be too dark, but it was just right, and the kind of puzzle that had the same level of difficulty from start to finish. I’ve said it before, but Schmidt puzzles really are fantastic quality now (about 20 years ago, they were hit and miss, but now they are reliably excellent).
Breakfast with a View, Schmidt, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 10, 2024
This is another puzzle from the Cities of the of the World series. I enjoyed this a lot more than the last one I did, because there were some easy bits to get you started, like the billboard and the buses. When I did the previous puzzle (Amsterdam) I noticed that there was a small difference between the box image and the finished puzzle, but I didn’t think much of it. The first puzzle in this series that I did was Rio de Janeiro, and I don’t remember noticing any differences. Anyway, this time, I actually looked at the info sheet in the box, and turns out, these are mystery puzzles of a sort. There’s a backstory about a couple that like to travel (and puzzle), and they’re present in every puzzle and have some mishap. The difference between box and finished puzzle is minimal. It took me three puzzles to even notice that this is a type of mystery puzzle 🤣🤣
London, Piccadilly Circus by Frans Le Roux, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 7, 2024.
Puzzler1909 