Aaaaand we’re off! Mom and I finally starting working on her Christmas present yesterday and I’m not exaggerating at all when I tell you we had a fantastic time just sorting the pieces. 😍

Here’s the slightly terrifying (for me) part – I think the entire box may all be one puzzle! The pieces shown above are perhaps 1/5 of the box; I think these monotone colored pieces may be the sky part of the image. I’m a bit skeered! It isn’t going to be an easy or quick assembly and if it’s all one image it’s going to HUGE. Even if I’m wrong and there is more than one puzzle the amount of color line cutting that we found tells me it’s going to take quite a bit of concentration. We’re up to the challenge of course, we’re part of The Posse; but I confess to freaking out a bit and having to take my anti-anxiety meds. 😱

These are all hand cut wooden pieces, and although I have no idea what year this puzzle was crafted I can tell you they’re unbelievably intricate and well made. The fit would blow your mind! When you find pieces that fit together they FIT – we could take joined pieces and flick our wrists as hard as we could and they will not budge. It’s amazing! Even with tight-fitting cardboard puzzles I’ve never seen a fit like this; I can only imagine the teeny-tiny saw blade. Astounding! This is definitely a multi-exclamation-point puzzle!!

These are only some of the whimsies, the number of fascinating, beautiful, symmetrical shapes is way too many to show all at once. I’ve also pulled some of the color line cutting to show – cut around people, edges of buildings, tree trunks, etc. It’s going to be a photograph of the municipal building in New York according to the only words we found. It looks to be one of those photographs with hand coloring (painting atop a black and white photograph to add accents or large areas of color); most of the pieces are a sepia tone with some green added for trees, the very small American flag is painted with color, etc. It was the best time I’ve ever had sorting a puzzle – we were fascinated by every piece.

Here’s what we’ve put together so far, many of the shapes are fun, weird, interesting, cute, odd, and just….wow. (If you’re wondering, yes, this is the colored side up even though it looks as though there’s no color). I’m so excited to see the finished image, but it may take quite some time. I’ll give updates when I can – in between deep breathing exercises and moderate amounts of pharmaceuticals. Stay tuned!