Goodwill Store Finds: Two Puzzles from the F.X. Schmid Company

"Winter Riding School of the Vienna HOF,' F.X. Schmid, 2000 pieces, 36 x 25 inches

It was another good day at the Goodwill Store. I wandered in today (because the store is right down the block from the high school I pick up my grandson at every afternoon) not expecting to find anything new on the toy shelf, and almost missed these two puzzles because the boxes are so large that I at first thought I was looking at games rather than at puzzles. I was charged $2.09 for each of these even though one has 2000 pieces and the other has only 1000. Pricing at a Goodwill Store is, if anything, predictably inconsistent - you just never know what the price sticker is going to show.

"Dear Faces," F.X. Schmid, 1000 pieces, 27 x 17 inches

You will note that both puzzles are by the F.X. Schmid puzzle company, a company that I know was purchased by Ravensburger in 1998. It appears that these two were produced sometime between 1991 and 1994. As far as I can tell, Ravensburger does not use the Schmid name anymore, but I could be wrong - if so, please let me know in a quick comment.

The boxes remind me of the ones being used by White Mountain these days. They have about the same depth, but are noticeably larger than the White Mountain boxes.  Interestingly, the boxes are of identical size and depth, meaning that the 2000-piece puzzle feels "stuffed" into the box, and the 1000-piece one rattles around like half its pieces are missing...sure hope that's not the case.

And my To-Do puzzle pile grows higher and higher...but who could leave these behind?

Goodwill Store Finds: Guild Puzzles, "East Orange Vermont," 1982

"East Orange Vermont," Guild, 1500 pieces, 27 x 33 inches

After a two-week drought, I finally found three decent puzzles at a nearby Goodwill Store this morning. This old Guild puzzle from 1982 is my favorite of the three, however, especially since it is still factory sealed and the box looks like new. The photo up above is my own photo of the top of that box, in fact.

"East Orange, Vermont" is one puzzle in a six-puzzle series that Guild was producing in those days, and it's probably the most colorful of the group. I suspect that this is going to be a tough one when I finally get to it because all those orange leaves (which amount to at least 25% of the 1500 pieces) are going to be hard to tell apart. I haven't opened the puzzle yet, so I'm hoping that the piece-shapes will be varied enough to help me out a bit. If this is a simple grid-pattern cut, I'm going to be in a lot of trouble.

The six puzzles in the series, as shown on the sides of the box:

You will note that the puzzle was purchased from a store called Motts for $3.79 (I'm not familiar with Motts - anyone know where they were located?). By the way, I paid $3 for it today, and considering inflation over the last 35 years, that is one heck of a bargain by any standard.

These puzzles are all actual photographs rather than the kind of art work that most of today's puzzles are based upon. I grew up on the photographic style, and I remember how difficult they could be in the old days because the images were usually not all that sharp - and if they were ever sharp, the reproductions used for the puzzles never seemed to capture that. 

I do plan to work this one at some point, but it seems almost a shame to open it up 35 years after it left Motts.

The Puzzle Factory: "Elegant Interiors Venetion View" - Puzzles I Don't Have Yet

"Elegant Interiors Venetion View," The Jigsaw Puzzle Factory, 1000 pieces, 19 x 27 inches

This is the latest addition to my list of puzzles I sincerely intend to own one day in the relatively near future. I saw this one on one of the Facebook jigsaw puzzle pages early this morning and immediately fell in love with it.

I suppose what drew me to this one so powerfully is the perspective from which this puzzle's view is taken. Most usually, of course, any puzzle featuring one of Venice's canals would be created from the perspective of being on the water and coming directly toward some of that city's beautiful buildings while others pass the viewer by on the right and left. That this one takes such a different perspective both gives the puzzle a relatively unique look, and helps the puzzler imagine what it would be like to live inside one of those beautiful buildings along Venice's canals. 

The good news is that this is not an overly expensive puzzle and can be had right now for $16.99 from The Jigsaw Puzzle Factory - although at this moment, the "cart" function seems to be down for some reason and the puzzle can only be placed on your "wish list" for now.

Puzz3D, The US Capitol: And My Miserable Experience with It

"US Capitol," Puzz3D, 300 pieces, 12 x 34 inches

I can't say that I wasn't warned. I read all the negative reviews, and I heard a lot of the horror stories about this particular Puzz3D puzzle, but I actually believed that with enough patience it would all work out in the end. Well, it didn't.

At the point pictured above, I was still pretty satisfied that it was going to work out great, and that I would end up with something to be proud of...I was even considering spaces where I could display it for a few days. And then, the bottom fell out of my plans.

These are the written instructions to solving "The US Capitol"...all of them. In addition to this there are almost twenty small diagrams showing how the pieces will fit together in the various sections of the building, beginning with the base - which looks like the driveways and landscaping surrounding the building. 

What cracks me up most about these instructions are the "Helpful hints," which amount to a warning to beware of static electricity making pieces stick to your clothing. It would have been really helpful to add a hint that the diagrams sometimes show a puzzle-shape that appears to be three separate pieces, but is in reality, is only one piece. Or that some pieces that appear on the diagrams to be one-piece, are actually two separate pieces. Too, keep in mind that all the pieces are shown in the diagrams only as shades of gray, with no indication as to what they really look like.

Here's a better idea of what the diagram sections are like. As you can see, there are no colors or patterns on the pieces - as shown in the pictures. That would be bad enough, if the illustrators had not found a way to be even more misleading by misrepresenting the pieces shown as mentioned above.

It was at this point that I decided I would be better off by just junking the diagrams, and began working this one more like it was an ordinary jigsaw puzzle. And for a while, that approach worked well, and I started to make some good progress.

It seemed logical to start putting sections of the wall together next. Most of the sections, as it turned out, were made up of nine-piece blocks, but a few were more simply made from three large pieces despite what the diagram may or may not show.

My confidence in the finished project grew with every section of the wall that I slotted into place on the base. Things were looking good, even though I suspected that the tricky part was yet to come.

My luck continued right on through getting the roof on the building and setting the open spot for the Capitol Dome in place.

This is the point where things began to go badly...so badly, in fact, that my frustration level caused me to forget to take any more pictures. There are three more sections of the dome, each progressively more difficult and fragile than the one before. I managed to get two more sections up, but the final section that adds the actual curvature to the dome structure just proved impossible for me.  

If the dome pieces had been limited to twelve instead of being cut into 24, this probably would have worked fairly well. It would have been simple just to cut deep creases into those twelve pieces where they have to bend rather than cutting all the way through. This is very much a trial-and-error kind of puzzle, and after those twelve pieces were placed, replaced, bent, and re-bent enough times, they started to fit very loosely despite being made of quarter-inch-foam backing. About the twentieth time that a pair of them came apart (often with the small piece falling inside the hole cut for the dome fit), I threw in the towel.

Oddly, the most frustrating after-taste I have of this whole experience is getting it 95% successfully built, only to fail miserably in the last 5%.  I would have much preferred to hit the impossible stretch early on; at least that would have saved me four days of messing with this thing for nothing.

Spend your money on this one at your own risk.

"Bacintyme Boulevard" by SunsOut vs. "US Capitol" by Puzz3D

"Bacintyme Boulevard," SunsOut, 1000 pieces, 16 x 34

After spending three days trying to assemble one of Puzz3D's three dimensional puzzles...and failing miserably...I decided to start a puzzle today whose image calms me. This painting by railroad artist Greg Garrett perfectly captures what so much of America looks like to those of us willing to venture off the congested interstate highways as often as we can. I take an extended road trip or two every summer (can't wait for this year's drive) exploring different sections of the country in detail, and I avoid interstate highways like the plague. So for me, this is a "comfort" image, a little safe space in my head. 

But it won't be enough to calm my feelings of frustration with the whole 3D experience totally, so I'll have more to say on that whole experience tomorrow or Saturday - with pictures. I will say right now, however, that Puzz3D packaged the most misleading set of instructions I have encountered with any product requiring home assembly - ever. And that "ever" has now morphed into "never."  Never again will I purchase anything from Puzz3D.

CEACO 10-Puzzle Americana Collection: Puzzle No. 2

"Americana No. 2" of CEACO 10-puzzle box, 300 pieces, 15 x 11 inches

Like most of you, after I've finished a "large puzzle," and we all have our own personal definition of what constitutes a large puzzle, I slide down to a smaller, quicker one. I've found that alternating relatively quick puzzles with the more time-consuming ones, keeps me fresher and raring to get back to the next more difficult puzzle. The little 300-piecer shown above (an image I really like) was one of those change-of-pace puzzles.

A while back, I found a large 10-puzzle collection by CEACO in one of the Goodwill Stores around me, and was pleasantly surprised to find a $1.99 price on the box...twenty cents a puzzle is hard to beat. There is a puzzle poster in the box for reference when building the puzzles, and the one up above is simply marked on that poster as "2," so I don't know the artist or actual name of the puzzle. The collection includes four 500-piece puzzles, four 300-piece ones, and even two 100-piece puzzles, so I have nine more of these change-of-pace puzzles to go yet.

This is a look at the poster representation of the puzzle and the puzzle's frame. I always try to start with the frame just so that I can get a sense of the puzzle's overall size in relation to the size of individual pieces as quickly as possible. That helps me place pieces more quickly (by going more directly to the right section of the puzzle) when I reference them to the image on the box cover or poster for orientation.

With so few pieces, it was easy to work this one from any direction I chose, so I decided to go with a top-to-bottom approach. By this point, I could tell that the finished puzzle would not disappoint me.

I pretty much kept going in that direction until I came to the pond section of the puzzle. At that point, I started placing the cows, horses, and ducks into the picture. Overall, this little puzzle gave me more fun than I expected it would, and the finished image turned out to be one of my favorite American puzzles. Now, I find myself kind of looking forward to working the other nine.