Well, this turned out to be harder than I was expecting. Story of my life 🙂 The districts that are marked with colours were the easiest part, but even that wasn’t all that easy. Then there’s a lot of text, but it was so small that I had to use a magnifying glass all the time. On the right, there’s a list of notable buildings, and even a section on buildings that were being built in 1876. On the left, there’s a list of the blocks for each district (the blocks in the oldest parts of Helsinki have names in addition to numbers, and often they’re named after animals).
Helsinki City Plan 1876, Lautapelit.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 8, 2022.
This is a puzzle by the in-house brand of board game store Lautapelit.fi, but it’s not their best work, unfortunately. The fit was a bit off, but not too bad, and there was a good mix of piece shapes.
The place where I live is to the north of this map, I guess that was just wilderness in 1876 🙂
Another Lautapelit.fi puzzle, this one much easier than the stamps, but the quality wasn’t as good. This is more like what I’ve come to expect from Lautapelit.fi, which is OK quality, but you have to pay attention in order not to place pieces wrong. I wouldn’t get a puzzle of theirs with large areas of the same colour, but this was very enjoyable and it came together fast.
Board Game Shelfie, Lautapelit.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 2, 2022.
I’ve hardly played any board games in the past 25 or so years, so it’s hardly surprising that the only games I know I’ve played are Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly (or in this case, the Finnish version Monopoli). There are two more games that I’ve played as computer games, Civilization and Port Royale, but clearly, I’m not much of a board game enthusiast. I guess I prefer the puzzles, and I wish they’d make a similar image with puzzles instead of board games 🙂
I was sort of dreading this collage of Finnish stamps, but it turned out to be very enjoyable. The fact that there were so many small images made it difficult, of course, but I found the stamps so interesting that I didn’t mind. I was also afraid that the same stamps would recur many times, as happened with the Finnish Matchboxes puzzle, but there were only a few doubles. The quality was excellent, the best I’ve seen from Lautapelit.fi (a board game store that also has its own line of puzzles).
Finnish Stamps, Lautapelit.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on April 29, 2022.
On the left, president Urho Kekkonen (in office from 1956 to 1983; presidents now only get a maximum of two terms of six years) and the ice hockey world championship 1974, on the right, a stamp celebrating the 400 year anniversary of Helsinki in 1950.
There were a lot of nature-themed stamps, here some mushrooms and a bluethroat. Most stamps have a set value, and if the postage becomes more expensive, you have to add more stamps, but the bluebird is a stamp for a first class letter, and it’s valid forever. This seemed like a really good deal in the 90s, when we still kept in touch with our friends with actual letters, so of course I bought a lot of them. I still have some of these stamps, because, of course, letters are now mostly a thing of the past.
Great collage of (mostly) Finnish matchboxes. Despite the name, there’s at least one that says “Made in Sweden”. According to the box, the designs are from about 1930-1985, and I do recognize a few. While many were produced for the domestic market, there are some more exotic designs as well.
Finnish Matchboxes, Lautapelit.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 19, 2021.
The puzzle was produced directly for one of my favourite puzzle vendors, Lautapelit.fi, and made in Poland. The quality is nice, with a good mix of piece shapes.
This are two of my favourite designs: on the left a rather gruesome ad for insurance (in Swedish), and on the right for Philips radios.
Some of the matches were produced for use in other countries, like the USA and Saudi Arabia:
The most instantly recognizable design is this:
The brand of Sampo matches is still available and they still use a similar design, although with different colours. Since 1995, however, they are no longer produced in Finland.
My local puzzle shop, lautapelit.fi, also have their own puzzle brand. I’ve done candy collages before, but for once, I know almost all of the candies and what they taste like 🙂
Candy Classics, Lautapeli.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on April 21st, 2019.
The quality was not the best, unfortunately. Pieces sometimes fit where they don’t belong, although with an image like this that’s not a problem. There was some variations in basic piece shape, but the large majority of the pieces were of the two-tabs-opposite type. The finish was waxy, and all in all, it reminds me of Gibson puzzles.
The box has far too much stuff obscuring the image – the title goes on the side of the box, not on top!
I can’t resist presenting some of the candies:
Da-Capo is dark chocolate with a dash of rum, and it’s been around since 1916. Tsinuskitoffee is cream toffee, and while it’s probably not as old as Da-Capo, I can’t remember a time without it.
Two types of salmiak, often described as salty liquorice. Salmiak is available in the Nordic countries, Holland, Belgium, and in the north of Germany (I even saw Finnish salmiak in a supermarket in Dortmund), but it’s unknown in much of the world. It contains ammonium chloride and is not good for your blood pressure, but it’s soooo good! Finns love salmiak, and it’s one of the things many Finns living abroad miss the most. There’s even an association for salmiak fans, The Finnish Salty Liquorice Association. Salmiak is a bit of an acquired taste, many foreigners find it hard to get into 🙂
This is what you might call granny candy. Pectus (“chest” in Latin) are mints (the text on the box promises that they will refresh your mouth and breath), and Pax (“peace” in Latin) are a kind of liquorice pastilles (drops?). Both of these could reliably be found at my grandmother’s, and I would be surprised to hear from anyone my age whose Finnish grandmother did not provide these essentials.
Leijona (lion) drops with tar flavour have been around since 1933. “Sisu” is a Finnish word denoting grit and resilience, supposedly a national trait for Finns. The candy called Sisu (written in Gothic script) is similar to the Pax drops, and it has been in production since 1928.
This could only end one way: with a trip to the supermarket 🙂
Puzzler1909 