Sorry it’s taken so long to get today’s post published, but there’s exciting news to share! This morning mom came over and we put together the rest of the light colored section! *insert hilarious old lady happy dancing here*👵💃👵

She’s still here and we’re still working on it, but it’s definitely the sky portion of the image. Normally I would wait to post a picture from the entire day’s progress, but this is too exciting not to share!

You can see the symmetry in the image, and that there’s definitely going to be a building there! In fact, after I took this picture, mom found a couple of the pieces of the building that fit into what we have assembled so far. 😮 I wasn’t kidding about the color line cutting – a couple of the pieces that I pulled when we first started to show you that they cut along the outline of the building actually fit into our sky section!

These two pieces have NO light colored area on them at all, and fit perfectly into what we’ve already done! Devious!

The entire box seems to be only one puzzle, and there are MANY MANY MORE pieces left. We’re kind of at a loss of where to go from here. I almost want to go through the remaining pieces and sort again to see if we can find the pieces we’ve obviously missed, but that may not be the best use of our time.

Also, I’m very excited to have found a piece that has wording stamped into it, “Publishing Co.” is legible if you hold it at the right angle, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to find out what company made this puzzle! Two of the pieces have the word “Parker” written on the back of them, so it may be one of Parker’s “Pastime” puzzles from the early 1900’s. There’s so much mystery in our little mystery box!

We’re still deciding at the moment what comes next, but she’s so excited that she’s definitely going to be here for a while figuring out our strategy and hoping putting in lots of pieces!

Many people have asked if this puzzle is all one color, so I’ve tried to get a picture that shows clearly the shades and streaks. I did the best I could with my cellphone camera, but had to adjust the contrast, light, and clarity so that the differences were clear. Even with my lack of photographic skills I think you can see above that it isn’t all just flat color.

The color line cutting can make things tricky, they made cuts directly along the lines of color separation to keep you guessing – and it works! From the look of the assembled sections so far we believe that this large lightly colored area is perhaps the sky portion of a much larger image. Of course we won’t know for sure until it’s finished, but it’s definitely keeping us guessing. 🙂

The mystery of this puzzle and the fun of sitting in front of it and searching for connections has kept me occupied this past week, and I’ve been neglecting all other puzzling. I haven’t finished any puzzles in more than 7 days now! 😱

Progress is slow on this insane task I’ve set for the posse, but every piece found is a small triumph and there are many little old lady high fives being handed out. And let me tell you, gray-haired old ladies high fiving each other is giggle-inducing adorable!

My oldest son has gotten in on the act too, and apparently pops in the puzzle room when no one else is there to find a piece or two. Then he comes back when we’re working on it to proudly show us “this piece belongs to me”. I don’t blame him, each piece you find seems like such an accomplishment that you feel as though every connection should be witnessed by someone. I did it, I FOUND A PIECE!!

This puzzle is a beast! It doesn’t mean we’re not having a good time though. Mom came over 2 days in a row to play puzzle with me, and we’re having tons of fun. 🙂

As you can see we’ve been attempting to work on the edges. We find though that the pieces are so intricate and distinct that it we’re constantly being distracted. If I’m looking for a certain shape and come across a piece that I recognize might fit somewhere else I immediately forget what I’ve been looking for and try to find where that new piece goes. The more we work it and become familiar with the shapes the worse our puzzle a.d.d. gets! Still, we recognize that we’re doing it and end up laughing about it which makes the puzzle even more entertaining.

Silly old ladies that mom and I are, we’ve already got an inside joke going about this puzzle that makes us giggle or dissolve in to fits of uncontrollable laughter. My humor is quite dark and dry sometimes so I won’t share the joke here in order to keep from upsetting or offending anyone; but it’s certainly keeping us entertained. She sent me a 3 word text yesterday morning that seriously had me laughing out loud for several minutes. 😆

I haven’t decided if this is it’s own puzzle or part of a larger one, but I’m attempting to forget about that and just relax and enjoy putting it together. A five pound box of vintage wooden puzzle pieces with no clue as to image, size, or piece count turns out to be one of my best purchases in a while!

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!