Tag: Missing Pieces

The Global Puzzle

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

The Global Puzzle – A Broader View – 600 pieces

Does this look like fun to any of you? I wasn’t so sure about it myself, but was intrigued by the box and that the pieces were shaped like countries, states, and provinces so I picked it up at the thrift store. For some reason I really wanted to do this puzzle at this moment, and I’m so glad I did because it was super annoying – but so fun at the same time!

I’ve done only two other puzzles from this brand, A Broader View, and both of those were circular puzzles; this one was a completely different beast. The fit was quite loose, but this puzzle is 13 years old and looks as if it’s been put together many, many times. The edges and all the ocean pieces interlock, but the countries themselves just sit next to each other as the pieces are shaped like the countries they represent. This is meant to be an educational puzzle, so if the pieces connected together you would have hints to which country is next to another – it’s better for learning the geography if there aren’t hints like that.

That the countries don’t interlock is what made working on this puzzle so annoying, but somehow it made me so happy to assemble it anyway. I sorted the pieces very generally at first; all the countries have colors so those all went together, the edge pieces of course, anything with the black or white border that wasn’t an edge, and finally ocean pieces. The number of very large pieces and very tiny pieces was amazing; here’s one of the largest shown with one of the smallest…

Nova Scotia looks teeny tiny next to India, and the difference in sizes between many large countries and smaller island countries for instance was amazing.

The back of the box tells you that it is recommended that you start with the outer black frame, move on to the oceans, and then finish with the land pieces. That was my plan, but as you know sometimes the puzzle leads you another way. The outer frame went together with no problems, but assembling the oceans was tedious.

You can see here that on the ocean pieces is a listing for each country that shows the capital city, the population, and the area in square miles. Putting all of these in alphabetical order and completing just the ocean first would be a giant slog – at least it seemed that way to me. So instead after the border I started at the top with Greenland and moved down to North America. Once those pieces were in place I then went through all the ocean pieces and picked out the countries from A-G that I could find and assembled the Pacific Ocean. I then continued with South America and repeated with country information in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can see here how none of the states connect and how it could be (and was) annoying that pieces moved around whenever a new one was found and inserted into the image.

The larger countries like Brazil, Russia, China, Australia, etc. did have some pieces that connected to each other but none that connected to other countries. This is the first half of the puzzle done, and I again had the help of my youngest son, which made me quite happy. He was intrigued by this puzzle, and helped me out by getting my magnifying glass, studying the box, and telling me the order of the countries alphabetically so that I could put the oceans together without having to consult the box myself. He also put together almost all of South America by himself while I was taking a break and resting in bed. I love that he seems to be more interested in puzzles lately!

There was something about this puzzle that my son and I absolutely loved and it was so hard to walk away from! I would have taken more breaks than I did, but my son would come back to the puzzle room and want to help some more and I just didn’t want to break the spell.

Also, this puzzle is quite large at 3 feet x 1.5 feet (91 cm x 46 cm), so be sure you have a large enough work space. It fit on my smaller puzzle board with only a few inches to spare on either side!

Unfortunately it was missing one piece, the small island nation of Tuvalu located in the South Pacific (the right side of the puzzle). But even though it was missing I did learn that Tuvalu is only 10 square miles in area, and has a population around 10,000 people; I just love an educational puzzle.💖

This would make a wonderful addition to a classroom as an excellent educational resource. I’m sending it back to the thrift store with a small note written on the box denoting a missing piece with the space circled showing where. Even with a missing piece this puzzle was entertaining, educational, and just plain ‘ol fun!

Rabbit Hole Town

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles11 Comments

Rabbit Hole Town – HUADADA – 1000 pieces

Sigh. I’ve done it again. Without realizing it I purchased another crap-tastic puzzle made in China that steals artwork and does not properly license it or credit the artist on the box. My sincere apologies. Another awful puzzle with letters on the back, a bad fit, no artist credit, and missing pieces.

After it happened the first time I vowed to take more care when buying thrift store puzzles, and I thought I had this time. When I looked at the box, it had an address in Madrid, Spain on the side and I – wrongly – assumed that meant it wasn’t one of those puzzles. I should have been more diligent and read the entire box, and will do that from now on. My only happy thought around this is that this company got exactly zero of my dollars, and what I spent went to a Goodwill store that helps out in my community.

There are three edge pieces missing, all together on one side. Normally I always choose to be positive about things like missing pieces. Not going to happen today. Today I am blaming the company, I bet this thing was missing pieces when it was brand new. I have no actual proof of that, but whatever.

Yep, I’ve got an attitude. Deal with it.

This puzzle was so tall that I decided to actually use the letters on the back to sort the puzzle and to do each half separately so I didn’t have to stand up or lean way over to reach the top and cause more pain. I’ve never done this with a puzzle before; once with a 2000 piece puzzle I laid the image sideways on my board and worked it that way but I’ve not separated a puzzle in half before.

The posted included with this puzzle is RIDICULOUSLY large. It’s exactly the size of the completed puzzle – and that’s too big to be helpful honestly. The only way to use it effectively would be to hang it up on the wall, but not everyone puzzles in a place where that’s a viable option.

The artwork is absolutely adorable, and if I knew how to find who the artist is I would give them credit. It is nowhere on the box, obviously, they can’t really advertise that they stole someone’s work and put it on their sh*t puzzle. If you know who the original artist is, please let me know in the comments so that I can at the very least credit them here on my tiny little blog.

These companies that popped up during the pandemic to take advantage of the puzzle craze that was happening don’t seem to be going anywhere, and there are more of them than ever. I would never knowingly give any of these companies my hard-earned money. It disgusts me that they steal from artists, it ticks me off that their puzzles are so popular these days and that many puzzlers think they are good quality and have no problems at all buying their products. In general it is depressing, frustrating, and enraging.

I can’t tell you what puzzles to buy, it’s really none of my business. But I can tell you how I feel about this disturbing trend and let you see it from hopefully more than one side. I understand both sides, or at least I think I do. I know that I’m lucky to be able to afford the puzzles I buy, and I also know that not everyone is able to spend as much and does their best to get as much bang for their buck as they can. I really do understand, that was me in my younger days when I didn’t have extra to spend on anything. But spending money on these puzzles keeps these trashy places in business, places that steal artwork to make a quick buck. And if the artists whose work we enjoy can’t make enough money licensing their artwork to legitimate puzzle companies then it may end up that we won’t have their work any more. If they can’t make a living at it, why continue to do it; especially when others are profiting from your creations but you aren’t.

This company needs a VERY BIG STRAW. Cause it sucks.

Chosen One

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Chosen One – Mega Puzzles (Multipack) – 150 pieces

Here’s another fun puzzle from my multipack I found at the thrift store. I’m not in love with all of the images included, but this movie has a special place in my heart and I like the look of this one. It was pretty awful quality, but still was fun to assemble. It’s so nice for me to work on a smaller piece count after finishing a larger puzzle, it feels like a palate cleanser.

Many of the pieces had this problem; the die didn’t cut all the way through, and when someone separated the pieces the paper gets torn. Once it’s torn it can leave paper sticking up like this which makes the piece lift up off of the board. Annoying.

This is another puzzle where I documented the assembly as I went along, with a smaller puzzle it’s over so quickly and the puzzle doesn’t really need closeups to show you certain parts of the image. It’s more fun to just see how it came together – at least I think it is.

Of course it got started with the words, they’re almost always my favorite part.

Sorry about the glare, I didn’t check the picture before I continued on with the assembly – and I should have. I’ll get better at it if I start doing more in progress assembly pictures. Although you can’t see him well Buzz is mostly finished here.

After Buzz was done I just grabbed all the pieces with blue/purple of the little green men/squeeze toy aliens; it’s just fun to go where the pieces take you, especially on a smaller puzzle. This one was really enjoyable.

Even though this was missing a piece it was still great fun to put together and I enjoyed it. This puzzle came from a multipack, so it may be that the wandering piece found it’s way into a small bag with a different puzzle – or it could be long gone. You never know. Still even with a missing piece this was entertaining and made me smile. Can’t ask for much more than that.

The Sunflowers

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles12 Comments

The Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh – Trefl – 200 pieces

Oh man was I super excited to find a wooden puzzle at the thrift store – it’s never happened to me before and even better than just finding it – it was new, unopened! I couldn’t believe my luck and was so excited to assemble it. I had a puzzle on my board and was looking forward to finishing it quickly so I could get to work on this one. Sigh. As you can see, it’s more than just missing a few pieces; by my count it is missing 42 pieces. ☹

Both Penny and hubby brought up that it might just look like it hadn’t been opened, someone could have opened and assembled it and then did some fancy stuff to make it look like new when it was donated. It’s a possibility, but I don’t think that’s what happened. They could have made the outside look unopened, but the puzzle itself is in a paper bag sealed with a Trefl sticker showing the image on the puzzle and what looks like a product number. That bag was also unopened, the sticker had never been removed or peeled away from the paper. I believe it came from the factory this way, but I cannot say for sure. Even though this is the first Trefl puzzle I have ever done, I can’t with certainty say whether the missing pieces are the fault of the company so I can’t speak about their quality control without knowing whose fault this was.

What makes this even more upsetting for me was not only are so many pieces missing, it is a double-sided puzzle! Have you ever heard of a double-sided wooden puzzle? I hadn’t. When I started turning pieces over I was shocked that there’s an image on the back, a black line drawing of sunflowers. If this had been a complete puzzle it would have made me so happy to have found it for only $4.99. A shaped wooden puzzle, inside a rectangular puzzle, with another image on the back – how cool is that? Now it’s basically just an extra box to put in the recycling.

It was so interesting to me that this wasn’t just a rectangular puzzle of the artwork, but the vase of sunflowers itself could be done by itself as a shaped puzzle. This puzzle is just so different from every other wooden puzzle I’ve ever done, it would have been a definite keeper had it been complete.

Other than the fact that 20% of this puzzle was missing, it was relatively good quality. The pieces were about the same thickness as a Wentworth with a matte finish, the fit was quite loose but not too much so, the pieces of the frame were regularly shaped and the inner part of the puzzle had more irregular shapes – it should have five whimsies, but they were absent. You can see from their missing shapes that they were a chair, a bed, a leaf, a sunflower, and a vase of sunflowers.

This puzzle was quite a disappointment, but here’s how I’m choosing to look at it – I didn’t pay full price and I did get about two hours of quality puzzle time out of it even if it was incomplete. My job was to put together all the pieces until none were left, I completed my mission. Where else can you get two hours of entertainment that’s also good for your health for only five dollars? And, as a bonus, I saved someone else from spending their hard-earned money on a puzzle with so many missing pieces. Yay me!

Disappointing, but still I had a good time putting together the pieces that were there. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it. Onward to the next puzzle!

Puzzle Complaints

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Puzzle Complaints by Sandra Boynton – Workman – 500 pieces

Here’s a new one for me – I checked this puzzle out of the library! My youngest asked for a ride to a library about 8 miles from home (because I don’t like for him to ride his bike that far in serious traffic), so being the fabulous momma that I am we took a ride to the library. Not wanting to sit in the car during the Florida summer while waiting, I looked around inside and to my surprise found that they have quite a few puzzles that can be checked out. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while, so I jumped at the chance; it’s just too funny not to give it a go.

This is my first Workman puzzle, but I don’t think it’s fair to speak too much to it’s quality as it has obviously been assembled many times, and it looks like it wasn’t treated very well at some point. But I think I can confidently say if this puzzle were new it would most likely gotten a good/very good rating from me. There are a good variety of piece shapes, the image reproduction is very nice, the pieces are a good thickness and sturdy, and the backing actually feels soft if that makes sense. It’s got a blue paper on the back but it doesn’t feel “sharp” like that white paper backing on many puzzles, it actually feels soft to me. I can’t speak to the fit other than to say if it were new I think it may have been good. Again, this puzzle has been at the library for more than three years and has most likely been put together a LOT.

I had to show you this close up, it makes me smile. This puzzle was assembled with no help from the box image, so this random pieces was floating around, at first I thought I’d be able to find the pieces that went around it – no luck. Then I checked the back of the piece and it had the same backing so I figured it was definitely part of this puzzle, I just missed the surrounding pieces. It wasn’t until the very end of the assembly where I actually processed the words I had put together and tried it next to the words “quality control”, of course it fit. They did VERY well setting up the die, there was absolutely no help from any other pieces, this piece was all it’s own and fits perfectly. That can’t be very easy to do.

As I was assembling the border these pieces jumped out at me, obviously. First I thought perhaps they became delaminated and someone tried to fix them and did a crappy job. Then during the assembly I found the whole section in the upper right hand corner was warped and didn’t fit together well at all. My theory is that something was spilled on the puzzle and someone fixed it poorly; I don’t believe this had anything to do with the puzzle’s original quality at all, it was definitely user error; or as my husband calls it – an ID-10-T error. 😉

I’ve seen this image around for years and have wanted to assemble this puzzle, but not enough to spend money on it apparently. Not sure why. But finally I got the chance and I’m glad I did it. Even though this puzzle has been pre-loved a LOT it was still in relatively good shape, was missing only one piece, and it was very entertaining. I really enjoyed it!

Check out the library, there may a puzzle or two you could check out! 📚✔🧩