Not my usual style, but this was part of a lot of eight puzzles. The brand, Play Time, is not good (pieces fit where they don’t belong), but with only 250 pieces it wasn’t much of a problem.
Horses, 2019-05-18
Tag: Play Time
Tanlay Castle, 2018-11-25
I managed to finish the Play Time puzzle.
After the sky, the puzzle was pretty easy. The reflection is blurry enough that it was easy to tell what belonged to the real thing and what to the reflection (not always the case).
Even in the easy parts it sometimes happened that pieces turned out to be placed wrong. If you place a piece in a “corner” formed by two other pieces, you shouldn’t have to worry that the piece is wrong so that you can’t find the next piece – or the piece after that. Even in good quality puzzles, it happens that the piece is wrong, but usually, the wrongly placed piece has exactly the same shape as the right piece. This is not a problem, because you can still finish the puzzle without problems. It’s happened to me several times that I finish a puzzle, and then I can see that two pieces (usually in the sky) need to be switched.
The pieces themselves were sturdy, which helps a bit. Knowing whether or not a piece is correctly placed is even harder if the pieces are very thin.
I might do another Play Time puzzle, but it would have to be a great image, and definitely a lot less sky!
Tanlay Castle, In Progress
I started on the Play Time puzzle I got last weekend. I think Play Time is no longer active, but it was a Dutch manufacturer. I couldn’t find anything about the puzzle online, except a picture on a Polish puzzle forum, where someone had finished it.
All the pieces have the same basic shape with two pegs opposite, and despite the “Deluxe quality” badge on the box my expectations weren’t high.
Shopping
Today I went to several different flea markets (some are like garage sales, some more like thrift stores) and managed to pick up 9 puzzles. I used to buy almost all my puzzles like this because I couldn’t often afford new puzzles. I got quite bored with Alpine landscapes. Then, for a long time, I bought only new puzzles, with exactly the motives I wanted. (This, in turn, resulted in my eventually having enough of old maps, but more about that later.) Anyway, now and then I like to pick up some puzzles that I would probably never work on otherwise. Today’s haul:
The 500-piece beach is a Tactic-puzzle. Tactic is a Finnish manufacturer, and the quality is good, but I usually find the images boring. This is only my second Tactic puzzle.
Next to it is a German puzzle, the manufacturer is called Spiel Spass (“Game Fun”), and this is the first puzzle I’ve had from them ( I always thought they only make children’s puzzles). It’s a triptych, with 500+1000+500 pieces, and it’s still factory sealed! It’s called Poppy Meadow.
The Schmidt puzzle is also factory sealed. The quality will, of course, be great, but it will not be easy…
I’ve done a Ravensburger Colosseum, and here’s a Clementoni version. A few clouds in that sky would not go amiss…
I almost left the Educa with Sagrada Familia, it’s going to be difficult.
Variant is another Dutch brand, and I know it’s not going to be good. I’ve tried it before, but I can’t remember a particular puzzle. What I do remember is that the quality was not good. Still, nice image.
Finally, more Alpine views from Ravensburger. The box looks like it’s been through the wars, I’ll be amazed if all the pieces are there. This was the cheapest, 0,50 €, with the most expensive (the 3000 piece Clementoni) costing 3,50 €. Not bad!
Puzzler1909 