Category: Puzzles

The Other Op-Shop Jigsaw

This puzzle – purchased at an op-shop in Katoomba – depicts Monticello, a historic home in the USA once owned by Thomas Jefferson. 750 pieces is larger than I usually prefer, but the price was right and I felt confident I could complete it in time.

Unlike the circular one from a few days ago I was able to begin with the frame. Look closely and you’ll spy three absent pieces. I believed I was thorough in my searching for them, and by this point I assumed they would never turn up.

So far so good, and it wasn’t very difficult finishing the sections that were largely the same colour.

Pieces are still missing as you can see, and by this point I’d separated out all the blue ones so I was sure those two edge pieces weren’t going to turn up.

The cherry blossom sections were very challenging, especially when the branches were over the green grass. By the point of the above picture I’d spent maybe two hours on the puzzle, but that was probably only a third of the total time it took to complete.

Incidentally I’d never heard of Monticello. Seems like it would be an interesting place to visit!

And here’s the complete puzzle! Look closely and you’ll count seven missing pieces in total, one of which is a bit mysterious:

The piece was there, but the picture had fallen off! The only way I knew where it went without finishing the puzzle was that it was already connected to another piece when I opened the box!

In addition to the seven missing pieces, three others were in a state of disrepair and a few had the picture layer peeling off. This puzzle obviously came from a feral home, and shouldn’t have been sold at the op-shop in the first place.

If you’re keeping track, of the four op-shop puzzles I’ve made over the years only one had all of its pieces. But they’ve all still been fun to assemble 🙂

Another Op-Shop Jigsaw

In an op-shop in Orange I purchased this for a mere $4:

500 pieces is more than I usually like to do on these stays at mums, but the art was so nice I couldn’t resist. Let’s make it!

I intended to start with the edge but the radius was large and the curvature of the end pieces too subtle to separate them.

Very quickly I realized the pieces didn’t have much ‘grip’ and even a slight nudge of the puzzle tended to dislodge them. In other words, this wasn’t the highest quality product!

The above took a couple of hours, and was enough for my first session.

There’s a weirdness to the art, as if the artist wasn’t entirely sure what some of these beasts look like. Also I wonder why they included two numbats?

The bottom half was considerably harder than the top, especially the lower right quadrant. In total it took me three sessions and about six hours to complete:

Or more correctly almost complete; there were three missing pieces:

Shame on that op-shop for selling an incomplete product! They should have reduced the price by $0.02 to account for the 0.6% missing pieces 🙂

Jigsaw Time

I made a jigsaw. Can you identify where the photo was taken?

I’m sure you guessed by now (or read it on the sign), but this is Akihabara! Here’s the reference photo they used for the puzzle:

Specifically this photo shows the view of the lane adjacent to the Akihabara JR station. The photographer is standing just outside the station facing west, and the famous facades of the Radiokaikan and Gamers buildings are visible in the shot.

I wanted to date this, and the sign on the Gamers building on the right was useful:

Volume 1 of an anime called Punch Line was released on DVD back in July 2015, so this photo is ten years old.

I have of course been to Akihabara many times now, both long before and after this photo was taken. I’ve stood in this exact same spot and taken many similar photos myself. We’ve even stayed in hotel rooms that overlook this street, and this shot I took last year shows more or less the same view (with many less billboards!) from an elevated room window:

Tomorrow we leave for Japan once again, and after some travels around the country will end up in Akihabara toward the end of our three-week trip. When I’m there, I’ll try to duplicate this puzzle photo more closely 🙂