Such a fun puzzle! As per my usual rules I do not show the picture of the entire finished puzzle, to do so would be a spoiler and I’m not about spoiling anything. When I started my first What If? puzzle, I searched for a picture of the box to put on my “What’s on my board” section of the homepage and of course the first image that popped up was of the finished puzzle – what a disappointment for me! I couldn’t un-see it, I knew what happened in the image and I was upset. I will never do that to my readers, so all you get to see is the character shown on the box, heavily cropped.

You have to use more brain cells than normal because you don’t have the finished picture; but luckily with this series there are plenty of hints on the box image. You can see what everyone is wearing, what the background looks like, and you know what the premise is. This puzzle in particular was a little easier because you can tell as soon as you start turning over pieces and sorting what is going to happen. I can’t tell you what, but the “problem” is evident all over the pieces.

According to what we’re told, “The picture on the box shows the crowd’s excitement and anticipation….the puzzle inside this box depicts the shattering outcome! Doris Bootsayle loves rooting around jumble sales, charity shops and the like. She cannot wait to get TV auction expert Tom Wannapott to value her latest find. Will Tom make her dreams come true, or is there a sting in this tantalizing tale?”

So what happens? Of course I can’t tell you! That would ruin the fun out of figuring it out yourself. I love these puzzles where you don’t have an image and you have to figure out where everyone ends up and what happened. The artwork is fantastic, the puzzle quality is excellent, and the fun is built right in.

I’ve never shown this before, but one of the fun things about these puzzles is that they’re all drawn by the same artist, Geoff Tristam (one of my favorites 💖), and he does something fun on the back of the box. There’s a picture of him next to his bio, and in every picture he’s dressed up in the theme of the image. In this puzzle, which is a tv show much like Antiques Road Show, he’s dressed up as the expert…

Geoff Tristam

The Expert

I’ll try to remember to show his picture on the box with the remaining What If? puzzles I have left to do. They make me smile, and a smile can be such a help when you’re having a bad day, or just help to brighten a good day even more.

Have you done a Ravensburger What If? Puzzle? If not, I highly recommend giving one a try. I love them! 💟