"The Toy Store" (by White Mountain): Every Kid's Dream

"The Toy Store," White Mountain, 1000 pieces, 24 x 30 inches

It's been a while since I've built a White Mountain puzzle, so I was really looking forward to this one. As it turned out, this one would not be typical of the other White Mountain puzzles I've worked in the last few months, mainly because this is one of that company's "larger pieces" puzzles. I had not realized just how different from the other White Mountain puzzles I've done that one change would make this one.

The biggest impact of the larger pieces was in the way they fit together. At times, the space between adjacent pieces was annoyingly wide and I had to go back and apply a bit more force to them to get the gap to close up a bit. The fit was so loose, in fact, that when the corners of the puzzle inadvertently slipped over the edges of my puzzle board, the pieces would often come apart - and I really messed up at one point when I let that happen while a corner of the board was over open air. About thirty pieces dropped almost three feet and spread everywhere, costing me about ten frustrating minutes putting them back in place. The looser fit associated with these larger pieces also means that the "lines" between the separate pieces are much more obvious than usual when looking at the finished piece...something else I'm not crazy about.

The only surprise that I got in the initial sort was finding that this one would be near-impossible to sort by color (other than the store's wood floor, the red dress, and the yellow dress).  But that would not turn out to be a problem at all since the larger pieces made it easier to pick up a piece and know almost immediately what general section of the puzzle it belonged to. As usual, though, I missed half-a-dozen edge pieces in that first pass through the box.

It seemed logical to start with some of the figures in the store, mothers and their children, but I could not wait to build the six White Mountain puzzles that are prominently displayed on the shelves of this toy store, so I started there. (Those are actual White Mountain puzzles, including even two that I have on my shelves right now for later fun.)

As you can see, I worked on a few of the shoppers and even a couple of toys, but I kept coming back to those tiny puzzles. Go figure.

Things were really coming together at this point.

This is the point at which I started feeling like I was in the homestretch. The remaining pieces, even the wood floor, started coming faster and faster to their final resting places, and the puzzle was complete before I knew it.

Overall, this was a really fun puzzle to work, bringing back lots of great memories along the way since I am a child of that era. It is a relatively fast-paced puzzle that offers sufficient challenge for most puzzlers, so I'm going to put this one on my "keeper" shelf for revisiting in a year or two (like that ever really happens).

Puzzles I Don't Have Yet: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

"Sgt. Peppers Lone Hearts Club Band," Aquarius, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27 inches

This is another of those puzzles that I let get away when it was still readily available at retail prices...and now that I wish I had it, I'm seeing it priced on the secondary market at prices approaching $70. So needless to say, it will probably be sitting on my "Puzzles I Don't Have Yet" list for a long time.

Aquarius makes a high quality puzzle, and the image looks like it would be a lot of fun to put together, but the real reason I want this one is because just looking at that old album cover brings back some really great memories. I became a fan of the Beatles even before they first hit the shores of the US in 1964, and I have vivid memories of sitting in front of the TV set several times to watch them on the Ed Sullivan Show (in black and white). And then, after seeing them live in Houston in 1965, I was hooked forever. That particular "concert" is the most exciting one I've ever attended and is unlikely ever to be topped. I put "concert" in quotation marks because it was so noisy in the old Sam Houston Coliseum that it was often hard to hear clearly what was happening on stage. Luckily, I found a soundboard recording of that very concert about ten years ago, so I know now just how great that performance really was.

There are several Beatles puzzles kicking around the puzzle market but this one is my favorite.

Stave Puzzles and the Puzzle Collector

"Knight at Stavely Castle," Stave Puzzles, 800 pieces, 16 x 6.5 inches, $6,495

I've long been fascinated by "the Rolls Royce of Puzzles" company, Vermont's Stave Puzzles. The company is generally acknowledged as producer of the finest wooden puzzles being made in the world today, and their prices reflect that reputation (and that's the reason I have no firsthand experience with a Stave puzzle and have only admired them from afar).  Believe it or not, that $6,495 price tag on the puzzle up above, is actually the marked down "web price." Otherwise, the puzzle sells for one thousand dollars above that price.

Prices in that range mean, of course, that Stave's customer base is made up of some of the most prominent and famous people from around the world (the late Barbara Bush was one of their biggest fans). But the good news for puzzle builders/collectors is that a Stave puzzle can be had for substantially less than $7,000.

"Mad Tea Party Time," Stave Puzzles, 100 pieces, 6 x 9 inches, starting at $598

Custom puzzles like the one shown just above are priced according to size and number of pieces. The smallest, as noted, sells for $598, but Stave will produce the same puzzle for you (in 4-6 weeks) at various sizes.  The largest version is 1000 pieces, 25 x 20 inches, and sells for $4998 right now (with just about every other imaginable size and price in between). Again, these are the considerably cheaper "web prices."

"Beary Scary," Stave Puzzles, 50 pieces, 4 x 4.5 inches, $195

The cheaper puzzles are all what Stave calls "In Stocks," and a lot of them are in the one-to-three-hundred dollar range, so they will be the best bet for puzzlers who want to have a Stave puzzle in their collection but can't afford to purchase a custom puzzle.

So why are they so expensive? Well, the Stave folks explain it this way: 

"Each puzzle is meticulously hand-cut using delicately fine blades, one piece at a time, by a skilled crafter. No computers, no high-tech. One saw, one cutter—that's it. The cherry back is gently sanded and polished by hand to a soft gleam. Only those puzzles that meet our rigid quality standards actually leave our shop."

Using high-quality materials is costly enough, but this is a labor-intensive business, and that does not come cheaply - nor should it.  The company's comprehensive website will answer any questions you might have and includes FAQs and videos, so if you are an amateur puzzle-historian, like me, you will want to click on the link and learn more about this unique company.

Stave puzzles are not sold in retail outlets; if you want one, you have to go to Stave to get it. Of course, I continue to dream that I will find a Stave puzzle in a thrift shop someday...but if that happens, it could be dangerous because my heart might not be strong enough to take the thrill.

Texas A&M Puzzle from Dowdle Folk Art

"Texas A&M," Dowdle Folk Art, 500 pieces, 16 x 20 inches

I have seen Dowdle Folk Art puzzles around for a long time, but this was my first experience in solving one of them. I am a longtime admirer of Texas A&M University, especially of what it stands for and the approach it takes to educating our young people (my granddaughter, in fact, is a sophomore at the school right now so I know it quite well), so this one was a natural choice for me. At first glance, the puzzle looks quite difficult, especially those large sections of football fans inside the stadium, but I was surprised at how quickly it all came together.

As usual, I started by building the frame of the puzzle first in order to see how much space I would be dealing with, and to help me decide how to approach the rest of the puzzle.  That's when I first spotted the "missing piece" on the left vertical, just above the A&M logo. I found this puzzle (it's from 1999) in a Goodwill Store, so I was not particularly surprised to find a missing piece right off the bat.

With a few exceptions, all the separated pieces look very much alike because of the artist's heavy use of the school's basic maroon-color-scheme. So I began with the biggest school logo and the few bluish pieces in the puzzle. After that I decided to start putting together stadium signs and the pattern at the forefront of the puzzle where cheerleaders, the team mascot, the Corp, monuments, and fans are grouped together.

And you might notice here that the "missing piece" has somehow been found.  Well, it turns out that the rather large piece is very much the color of the hardwood floor in my study (which is also my puzzle room), and I suddenly noticed it in one corner of the room where it had most likely been sitting face-up for at least two days. If the piece had fallen facedown, I would have spotted it immediately, but that's the way my luck usually plays out.

Now it was time to tackle the crowd and a few remaining fill-in pieces in other areas. Let me tell you...those little people are small and they all look pretty much alike with the exception of the signs they may be carrying...small signs, at that. It was when I decided to sort the crowd pieces by shape that things really began to move fast, and all I had left to do was fill in that handful of pieces at the bottom.  

I really enjoyed putting this one together and I recommend this kind of puzzle to others out there. Dowdle makes a number of similar puzzles for different schools across the country, so take a look for the school of your choice and you may just find a puzzle representing it.

The pieces on this one are thick and the finish is a bit glossy and prone to glare, but that gloss really enhances the look of the finished puzzle when viewed in indirect light. Adjoining pieces almost always clearly fit together, but somehow this did not translate into a tight fit. I don't glue...I use blue painter's tape on the backside of the puzzles I want to keep whole. As I found this time, even the most careful flipping of this puzzle is impossible without it coming apart in large sections. Consequently, this one will be going to my granddaughter in the box this summer when she's back home so that she can build, glue, and frame it for when she returns to school in the fall.

Puzzles: The Movie

Kelly MacDonald, "Puzzles," 2018 Sony Movie

I think I'm living in Wacko World today.  The last thing I expected to stumble upon when I woke up this morning was a new summer 2018 move about...wait for it...jigsaw puzzles. But that's what happened, and now I'm putting "Puzzles" on my calendar for July 13. I can't imagine that this one is going to get a "wide release," however, so actually finding a theater with the guts to screen it in this comic book, superhero movie world, may be a little tougher than it sounds.

Here's the official PR blurb description of the film: "Agnes, taken for granted as a suburban mother, discovers a passion for solving jigsaw puzzles, which unexpectedly draws her into a new world where her life unfolds in ways she could never have imagined."

Well, THAT, sounds exciting.  

The movie is directed by Marc Turtletaub, and stars Kelly MacDonald, Irrfan Kahn, and David Denman.  Take a look at the official movie trailer, just below, to get a better feel for what the movie is like (definitely sounds better than the blurb I quoted up above).

Puzz3D Puzzle: The US Capitol

"The US Capitol," Puzzz3D (Milton Bradley), 300 pieces, 12 x 34 inches

I ran by a local Tuesday Morning store this morning before Sunday lunch to see if anything new may have hit their shelves last week. Although there was nothing new there, they still had this 3D puzzle/model of the US Capitol that has been on my mind since I first saw it there last week. I've seen several around town in the last few weeks, in fact, and have been wondering what kind of puzzle-building experience they offer...so only one way to find out.

Puzzles like this one do not seem to be very popular, but I'm hoping that's only because there are so few of them. Too, since they can't be framed or glued and placed out of sight, they are not nearly as appropriate for display (in the long term, at least) as the traditional jigsaw puzzle. 

Reviews indicate that some people love them and race right through them. Reviews also indicate that some people hate them and either cannot figure them out or do not like how "shaky" they are upon completion. Honestly, my big concern is that I was never very good at putting together those old plastic models (airplanes, cars, etc.) when I was a kid, and 3D puzzles seem pretty similar to those old model kits.  

If you have had experience with this type of puzzle, I would love to hear from you. How does solving one of these compare to solving a traditional jigsaw puzzle? What do you do with the finished product?

Loony Tunes Puzzle - Seven Days of Fun

"That's All Folks," Aquarius Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 27 x 20 inches

I finished this Looney Tunes puzzle a couple of days ago and enjoyed the whole process from start to finish. The Looney Tunes cartoons were my favorites as a kid because they were so much more fun to me than the sugary sweet Disney cartoons. Mr. Disney was a marketing genius, but in my opinion, the Looney Tunes were generally better - I know they always made me laugh, usually out loud.

I could tell from the start that this was going to be a relatively easy puzzle, and it's easy to see why. This is one of those puzzles that an initial sorting effort will easily divide into just a few primary colors. The only color-blending is in that large pile on the bottom left, the red and black pieces that blend together to frame all of the cartoon characters. Those pieces could be challenging at times, but in the end, they came together fairly quickly too. 

As usual, I started with pulling all of the border pieces and completing the frame before moving on to the rest of the puzzle.

Because the color patterns were pretty obvious, I next pulled the smallest of the piles, the green ones, and began to put together the Frog and Alien characters. When the green was gone, I was left with filling in with all the connecting pieces of other colors.

Next up was the yellow pile. That gave me all of Tweety, the brush on the Alien's helmet, and most of the words "Looney" and "Tunes." Things were starting to come together nicely at this point.

Then it was time to begin Daffy Duck and Sylvester the cat by tapping into the orange and white pieces a bit. It would prove to be a long time, however, before I would complete these two characters.

Next, was a little progress on the Coyote character, a character that would keep me busy for a bit longer than I expected it would - the guy had very long ears.

Then it was finally time to start working Bugs Bunny into the picture. Because Bugs is the central character in the piece he is a good bit larger than everyone other than Sylvester the Cat.  

This is the point at which I started to feel I  was coming to the homestretch of the puzzle, little realizing how long those red and black blended pieces were still going to take me to complete.

This one was more fun than most, probably because it brought back so many good memories. The quality of the puzzle is excellent: thick pieces, bright colors, a large but manageable size, and NO missing pieces. My only complaint is that the pieces did not always fit together quite as tightly as I prefer them to fit.

Overall Grade: Excellent

Jan van Haasteren Puzzles: Goodwill Store Finds

"Tall Ship Chaos," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

I make a regular circuit of visits searching for puzzles to the three Goodwill Stores within a few miles of my house (mainly because I've got to be in two of the parking lots everyday anyway for other reasons) but I find them to be a hit-and-miss proposition. But this week has been a real puzzle bonanza for me, with the three mentioned in the previous post, and now these EIGHT Jan van Haasteren "comic puzzles."

Now comes the rub, though. I've never worked one of these before and have no idea how I'm going to react to them. But the Goodwill Store that I found these puzzles at has a one-third off discount for senior citizens every Wednesday, so who could possibly resist getting eight puzzles for a grand total of $9.02? Well, not me. The puzzles do strike me as "love them or hate them" puzzles, but there's only one way to find out for sure.

"Seashore" and "Track Meet," CEACO, 550 and 750 pieces, 24 x 18

"Soccer" and "The Fire Station," CEACO, 550 pieces each, 24 x 18

As you can see, the puzzles seem to have been purchased over a few years by one collector/puzzler. Information on the boxes indicates that the puzzles were first produced between 2011 and 2015, and during that time the CEACO company seems to have changed it's box style to the more durable one shown just above. The eight puzzles break down this way: three at 1000 pieces, two at 750 pieces, and three at 550 pieces, all in all, a pretty good haul.

"The Winter Fair," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

"The Zoo," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

"Emergency Room," CEACO, 750 Pieces, 24 x 18

So I suppose this is the beginning of a new Jan van Haasteren collection or it's the beginning of a huge disappointment. Time will tell...can't wait to find out.

Puzzle Finds: Goodwill Store

Texas A&M Aggies, Dowdle Folk Art, 500 pieces, 16 x 20

Finally. 

Finally, I found some puzzles at the one Goodwill Store (among a total of three that I visit regularly) that I've never seen anything but a few beat-up children's puzzles. And what a find it was for someone like me who has admired Texas A&M University - and everything the school stands for - for the last several decades. I've seen a few of Eric Dowdle's folk art puzzles around before, but this will be my first experience with one of them. If all the pieces are in the box, this one is destined to be framed for use in my study.

In keeping with the Dowdle Folk Art theme, I also found his portrayal of one of the most popular tourist draws in Mexico: Puerto Vallarta.

Puerto Vallarto, Dowdle Folk Art, 500 pieces, 16 x 20

The box on this one is more beat-up than the box holding the A&M puzzle, so it will be interesting to compare the contents of the two boxes for completeness and condition.  The contents of both boxes are packed in plastic bags (and the Aggie puzzle even includes the puzzle poster), so I am hopeful that all the pieces are there.

Finally, I picked up this Ravensburger puzzle for $1.99 even though I'm not terribly drawn to the image. I'm running low on 500-piece change-of-pace puzzles, and any Ravensburger puzzle for a couple of bucks seems like a good idea, so...

Idyllic Life, Ravensburger, 500 pieces, 27 x 20

Aquarius Mystery Solved - Doh!

"That's All Folks," Aquarius Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 28

Well...this just stinks. I was really enjoying this puzzle, and it was going very quickly because it's largely made up of primary colors. I knew that when I started working on the "words" in the puzzle that things would slow down, and I was more correct about that than I realized. The yellow pieces with red lines look very much alike when chopped up and spread out into one pile, and that was bad enough. But I finally got into a good rhythm and worked my way through all the pieces, only to find that there aren't enough of them there to finish the word "Tunes." 

I am at least TWO, and probably THREE, pieces short in this puzzle already, and I know this at the 400-piece mark on my progress toward completing it. Believe me, these yellow pieces just jump out at you, so if they were still in the remaining stack of pieces, they would be easy to find. Now, no matter what happens with the rest of the pieces, the puzzle is doomed to have a big, very noticeable, hole in it. That takes away much of the fun of completing this one now, but I imagine I'll trudge on to the finish line anyway.

Note: This is only the second Aquarius puzzle I've ever built, both of them bought brand new. The first one was a 1500-piece Coca Cola posters puzzle that had one piece missing in the left vertical border (and again, I knew this very early on because I always complete the puzzle's "border" first). Now this one has at least two pieces missing. 

EDIT: Lesson learned...look closely at the picture and you will see what I just noticed finally: by sliding the "E" down to the "S" I get a clean fit and all the pieces are suddenly accounted for. Doh! (The lefthand side of this row was tied in to the border and I thought I had the right angle...nope.)

"Pet Day" Comes Together (The Art of Susan Brabeau)

Pet Day, SunsOut Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 27 x 35 inches, Artist: Susan Brabeau

Of all the puzzles I've worked in 2018, this may be my favorite of them all, and one of the main reasons for that is that I've really fallen in love with Susan Brabeau's art. Brabeau has a special talent for keeping her pictures "real." Her characters all look like real people, the kind you might run into on any given day while wandering around your hometown, rather than a bunch of posed models. This makes her work very distinctive, and I'm always on the lookout for puzzles featuring anything of hers.

Too, I've generally taken a liking to SunsOut puzzles because of the great images that company uses. Most puzzle companies are predictable. You know to expect collages or landscapes from certain companies, Disney stuff from others, etc., but with SunsOut you never know what you might find. And because of their distinctive square boxes, SunsOut is always easy to spot on the shelves, so I see a lot of them.

I hadn't realized just how big 27 x 35 inches was until I finished getting the border pieces all sorted.  This is the largest puzzle I've done this year, and it required just about all the available space on my puzzle board, which is 32 x 40 inches. That didn't leave a lot of room to sort different colors, and that slowed the whole process down a bit.

I finally decided to take what the puzzle was willing to give me, and if that meant putting sections together and linking them to the main puzzle later, that's what I did. But the characters started coming together fairly quickly, and I could see that, as usual, I was going to be saving a lot of dark pieces for the end. Surprisingly, the teacher's coat turned out to be one of the easier parts of the puzzle despite the pattern on the coat fabric. The classroom background and some of the animals would prove to be a good bit more difficult.

But even those sections started happening for me eventually.  As it turns out, the hardest part for me to complete was the big dog in the center of the picture because the dog's fur was sometimes hard to tell from the hair of the little ponytail-wearing girl up front.  Once I began working those two sections simultaneously, it got a lot easier to place those pieces.

And then, when I finally got this one down to the home stretch (after having it on the board for eleven days), pieces started flying into place.  The last 100 missing pieces, as shown here, went into place in just a matter of minutes until I finally reached the most satisfying part of the process - clicking that last piece into place.

I really hated to tear this one down and re-box it, but it's just too large to frame and place on one of the walls of my study. But I have a stack of puzzles that I can see myself working again sometime, and this one is most definitely going into that stack.

(I will be doing an overall rating of the SunsOut Puzzle Company soon.)

Tweety, Daffy, Bugs, Sylvester & Friends

"That's All Folks," 1000 pieces, Aquarius Puzzles, 20 x 28

My current puzzle is one featuring some of my favorite cartoon characters from way-back-when.  I have always preferred the Looney Tunes cartoons of the day over those of the slicker, sweeter Disney ones, so this one jumped off the shelf and into my hands when I spotted it at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago. 

Aquarius consistently produces high-quality puzzles, and this one is no exception. On this particular puzzle, though, the colors are the thing: bright primary colors faithfully reproduced to closely match those on the box. As I've often noticed, however, the Aquarius boxes have a little quirk about them in that the cover photo never seems to be cropped to match exactly the actual image produced by the puzzle pieces.  That can be more than a little confusing sometimes.

Anyway, the basic sorting is all done, and it's time to start assembling the end pieces - and, if things run the way they usually do, I'll be going back into the sorted stacks to find the five or six end pieces I missed on the first pass through.

Goodwill Store Puzzle-Finds (Persistence Pays Off)

Shopping for jigsaw puzzles at Goodwill Stores can be hit and miss, but at those prices, it's hard to go wrong. You're not really risking a whole lot of money, after all. For instance, I found these three puzzles at one of the Goodwill Stores near my house this morning - and paid a whopping $5.12, including tax, for them.

The White Mountain and the Ravensburger puzzles were both marked at $1.99 and the Colorluxe one was marked the same but was on sale for 75% off.  So if there are a piece or two missing, it's really no big deal.

The surprising thing to me this morning was to find ANY puzzles in this particular Goodwill location marked at less than $4.99 (a price I consider too high to take a chance on used puzzles) because they have insisted on that price for the last few months even though the puzzles just sat there gathering dust.  It appears that someone there wised up and got their prices in line with the other Goodwill locations I visit from time to time.  I had given up on even visiting this particular location, but it's definitely going back on my list now.

Puzzles I Don't Have Yet

"Harvesters," D-Toys, 1000 pieces, 26.75 x 18.50 inches, $17.95

This beauty is one of the beautiful "Harvester" paintings done by France's Julien Dupre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  I love just about all of those paintings, but this is the only one I've ever seen in puzzle-form. I'm a little hesitant to purchase one because I suspect that it will be a lot tougher than it looks.  But, hey, that's why they call them "puzzles," and one day soon this one is coming home to me.

In case you want to beat me to it, I know that Puzzle Warehouse sells it for $17.99 plus shipping at the moment. I've seen it elsewhere for around $20, so this may be the best price available.

This is the beginning of my "Wish List" series, and puzzles shown here will be cross-linked to a Wish List summary page.  You can never have too many puzzles, but you only have so much storage space...so this is my virtual closet.

Favorite Puzzles: "Oh, I Wish He Was Ours," - Civil War Art by Mort Kunstler

This is one of my all-time favorite puzzles - for a lot of reasons - but mainly because I have spent so many hours reading Civil War history, visiting battlefield parks, and visiting Civil War museums that I feel a close kinship to soldiers on both sides of that terrible conflict.  It all started for me when my grandmother shared memories of her own grandfather, a man who survived the Civil War despite having seen action in a Louisiana infantry unit during some of the Civil War's major battles (Shiloh and Vicksburg, for instance).  It still amazes me sometimes that I heard stories from her that she had heard directly from him.  That really compresses time and helps me comprehend just how young a country the United States still is.

"Oh, I Wish He Was Ours" by White Mountain, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27 inches

Puzzles like this one are getting hard to find at anything resembling a reasonable price.  Why?  Look no further than that red battle flag up in the corner, and you will have your answer.  That flag just may be the most politically incorrect thing in this country right now because of how it's been misused by radical racist groups to intimidate minority populations.  I understand...but I love Mort Kunstler's Civil War art and do not believe that these puzzles should be taken off the market because of what a few idiots have done.  The folks at White Mountain will tell you that they just didn't sell well enough to justify prouction, but I have to wonder if there is not more to it than that.

"Oh, I Wish He Was Ours" is part of a whole series of Civil War produced by White Mountain, but interested collectors should be warned that, if they don't already own the puzzles, they will have to pay dearly for some of them on the collector's market ($50-$100 per puzzle).  

Here are some of the other Civil War puzzles produced by Kunstler and White Mountain:

Chamberlain's Charge, 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"The Civil War," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Magnolia Morning," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Generals Brought to Tears, " 1000 pieces, White Mountain 

"Model Partnership, " 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Candlelight & Roses," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

I have only two others of the ones pictured here ("Soldiers Brought to Tears" and "The Civil War") and have been saving them for later. In the meantime, I'm always looking for reasonably priced copies of the others.

Wish me luck.