About my ratings

Perhaps because of my day job, I'm a tough rater. Everything 3/5 and above I consider worth the time and money. If I purchase on Etsy or a similar platform and the puzzle is as expected, I will give a top rating on the platform because of how seller ratings work, but here "as expected" is probably a 3/5 in most cases.

Friday, October 29, 2021

Tomas Pietrzyk, Tall Tower

 Tall Tower, 629 pieces. This is a pleasant puzzle with difficulty mainly stemming from piece size. 3/5





Baffling Bubbles

 Nervous System x Chris Yates, 212 pieces. Sugary Cereal color. Crossovers arrive to wooden puzzles (next up when I can get to it, the Par x Stumpcraft collaboration). I really enjoyed this--it has a lot of tricky connectors and somewhat deceptive color combinations. 4/5





Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Joe Vaux, Season of the Rabbit

 Artifact, 300 pieces. I like the piece style a lot--monster parts (sometimes whole monsters, but it's fun that it's not always so). 3/5




Justin Hillgrove, Mad Tea Party

Artifact, 206 pieces. Cute image, simple assembly. 3/5




Monday, October 25, 2021

Tyson Grumm, Slacking Pandas

Artifact, 224 pieces. Bamboo shaped connectors--cute. 3/5


sleeping panda (didn't see dragon, perhaps hidden)



Kandinsky, Far Away

 Artifact, 232 pieces. I really liked this one--beautiful colors, interesting shapes, not particularly hard. 4/5




Thursday, October 21, 2021

Kevin Sloan, Welcome to the Wilderness

 Artifact, 418 pieces. Charming image and nice irregular edge. 3/5



multipiece traveling whimsies



Hot Pursuit, Norman Thelwell

 PG Wooden Jigsaws, 150 pieces. Cute Xmas themed image, slightly fragile whimsies. 3/5


why a gun whimsy?

fragile gun tip



Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Summit Sunrise, Mike Lathrop

 Puzzle Lab, 200 pieces. Very difficult because lots of the pieces fit, or seemed to, in different places and there wasn't always a ton of guidance from the image, though there was enough for me to do the puzzle with confidence (albeit the last piece I placed required moving a piece on the edge from where I'd had it and shifting it to the interior; once I'd done that, the superiority of the placement was clear). 3/5




Howard Robinson, Tiger, Tiger

 PG Wooden Jigsaws, 150 pieces. English brand I heard about in the Facebook wooden puzzle group, I think. Cute enough and I like the subject; quality a little splintery, a lot like Images of Nature in the US. 3/5





Thursday, October 14, 2021

Spooktober

 Anthology, approx 200 pieces. Cute and small--very small pieces! But nice holiday themed image. 3/5





Lady Liberty

 Enigma, 502 pieces. New seller of hand-cut puzzles on eBay; not clear whether puzzles are used but this one arrived in good condition. Very difficult because of minimal color variations across wide swathes as well as a lot of irregular edges. Still not sure where the boy in the baseball cap was supposed to go. 4/5



King Kong on the Empire State Building

Mini Lady Liberty



Friday, October 8, 2021

Baby

 A.J. Crippen, 100 pieces. Somewhat unusual cut shapes, interlocking, fading on the image--medium quality vintage. 3/5




Tropical Fish

 F.A. Bourke, 22 pieces. Colorful and well-cut.




Bill Carman, Golden Whistle

 Artifact, 318 pieces. This one is pretty dark visually, with some whimsies that pick up on the image. 3/5


penguin-esque figures

hippo



Monday, October 4, 2021

Vikram Madan, Physical Impossibility

 Artifact, 292 pieces. I can't say I get the title--is it about an alien abduction of an alien?--but it's a cute image (or images within image, including at least one from another Artifact puzzle). 3/5





Melodramas in the Mist

 Stave, 650 pieces. Americana and mist (which helps disguise the variations from modern perspectival illustration). Some cute interacting whimsies and a coach-and-horse combo drawn from but not color line cut along the images (along with a bit of color line cutting for some of the smaller figures). 7/10




well met?

spider 1

interacting birds

a house

interacting boots

dragonflies, another house

spider 2

interacting trees

carriage and horse

cow+N+tree chair+M = country charm