This puzzle with designs from American designer couple Charles and Ray Eames was so much fun! There are a couple of other puzzles in the series, and I’m definitely getting them as well. The lounge chair and ottoman in the middle definitely look familiar, although I’m not sure if I ever sat in one.
Little Sun is an organization whose vision is “Universal access to clean energy”, and Ravensburger has published three puzzles in this series. This was a very enjoyable and easy puzzle, loved it!
Euro 2024 started on Friday, and I already finished my football puzzle for the tournament! A newer version of this image by Mordillo is currently available as a 4000 piece puzzle, but I’ve decided long ago that that’s more than my sanity can handle. This is an older version, and since it says 1982 on the box, it was probably produced for the 1982 World Cup in Spain. I don’t think I could handle more than 1500 pieces of this. The fit was, by the way, very loose, even for Heye. I started with the colourful text at the bottom, and then I completed the goals and the audience. The most difficult part was the playing field, and I relied on the image a lot.
There were lots of players that I’ve never heard of, but some old favourites as well. On the fence there’s a banner for Beckenbauer (Germany), who had already ended his career as a player by 1982. He died in January this year. Also on the fence is a banner for Platini (France), who was one of the stars of 1982. Roberto de Vicenzo is not a footballer, but an Argentinian golfer – Mordillo was also a fan of golf 🙂
Paolo Rossi (on the umbrella) turned out to be the tournament winner for Italy in 1982, and I had quite a few pictures of him on my wall.
I love the little guy in the middle!
This is a puzzle from the Disney Castle Collection, where there’s Disney princess and a cross-section of her castle. I always thought they looked like they would be entertaining puzzles, and recently a Finnish discounter offered them all for a very good price. I ended up ordering all ten of them. Of the ten, I only know two of the princesses (Snow White and Cinderella). Anything by Disney produced after ca. 1980 is most likely unknown to me.
I ended up doing the rooms of the castle last, and I started with the sky.
The fateful mirror:
In the cellar, there was a room with magical potions (I assume), and with shackles and a skeleton in a corner.
When I was spreading out the pieces for this one, I was expecting it would be a bit of a chore, but I really liked it. With this kind of image, you do end up looking at the box image quite a lot, but I didn’t mind.
There are a surprising number of cats in the puzzle, and many masks were worn by cats, not by people:
Here are some of my favourites:
This puzzle was produced in 2016, just around the time that Heye had a bit of a drop in quality. Unfortunately, this puzzle is affected, and the pieces were on the thin side, and the puzzle feels uneven when you run your hand over it. Not too bad, but the current Heye puzzles are better.
This was a new Heye puzzle, from this year, and the artist Lectrr is new to me as well. The puzzle was fun, although I ended up looking at the box more than I was expecting.
The police seems to be looking for a cat:
There something rather alarming in the car crusher:
The ice cream truck looks really good to me right now, we’ve had an unseasonable heat wave in Finland:
This puzzle was every bit as entertaining as it looks! I was also happy to find the quality perfect, since I have heard that since the pandemic started, Buffalo has had some issues.
It was a bit like having two images, one traditional landscape in the window, and the inside of the train. Loved it, and I’m going to keep this!
I did a couple of Ravensburger Exit/Escape puzzles. On the right, there is Midnight in the Garden, where the backstory is, that you are a vampire looking for a symbol that will guarantee everlasting love and only appears once in a hundred years. I was hoping there would be a bit more colour in the finished image, but it was as dark as the box image. You can have a peek here, if you want to.
On the left is Apocalyptic City, where you are the first person to leave the bunker where you have grown up, to discover if it’s safe. A supercomputer apparently told humanity to go under ground, but now it’s supposed to be safe again. You can see the finished image here.
Calypto was a new brand for me, a French one, and the puzzles are manufactured in France. It started out well, a grid cut with a good mix of piece shapes, and the cut is nice. The pieces have a waxy finish. There is also a poster that is as big as the finished puzzle. On the box image, the clouds in the sky are different from the puzzle, but poster and puzzle are the same.
I’m sure you can see where this went wrong – there are seven pieces missing.
There were also two pieces with doubles:
This is not a good look for a new brand, I’m afraid.
After the immensely difficult and frustrating Borussia Dortmund puzzle this was such a pleasure. The usual Ravensburger 300-piece puzzles are also nice, but I especially like the series with XXL pieces. I’m keeping this for my old age when I will need the large pieces.
Puzzler1909 