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Change of appearance to improve Rare Puzzles

It's been around two years since our last change of appearance. Back then I bought some software that would allow people to sell their own puzzles on the site. Since then, some new sellers have joined Rare Puzzles and some others will come soon. During this time I have learned about some of the challenges of a marketplace website. The most important one is having buyers and sellers in different countries. Change to improve In an attempt to make things easier for buyers and sellers (and for me as well), I will be installing some new software in the next days. It is a Wordpress plugin that hopefully will improve the one we have right now. As a consequence, the appearance of the website is also going to change significantly. For that reason, t is likely that at the beginning Rare Puzzles will look like a new website. However, the content is going to remain the same. The change of appearance will probably take place in two phases. First, I will install the Dokan marketplace plugin and verify that everything is working. After some days, if there are no major hiccups, I might need to install a new Wordpress theme so that Rare...

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1500, Art, Educa

1500, Educa, Walk on the Beach, Joaquín Sorolla

Joaquín Sorolla was a Spanish artist that knew how to capture the bright sunlight of Valencia, his native land, as we can see in this Walk on the Beach, or Paseo a Orillas del Mar, which you can admire at the Sorolla Museum, in Madrid. This is one of his most famous paintings. Two copies of 1500, Educa, Walk on the Beach I had two copies of this puzzle and both were incomplete. However, I was hoping that perhaps both versions were compatible, so that I could get a complete copy and leave the other one for replacements. Unfortunately, they were not compatible, but I decided to assemble both copies anyway. I have completed two copies of the same puzzle more than once before, and the second time is usually very easy because you can put it together over a puzzle already finished, so it was not such a big deal. Besides, except for all the pieces of the sand, the rest was quite feasible. Very different copies When I wrote about the possibility of replacing pieces from an incomplete copy, I mentioned some of the challenges. In these two copies, I found them all. In fact, except for the image itself, the puzzles were...

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Package Lost in the Mail at Rare Puzzles

More than a year ago I wrote a blog post about shipping insurance where I gave details about the first and only shipment damaged during transit at Rare Puzzles. Since our puzzles always travel in First Class because I pack them very carefully, the chances that they get any damage are very slim, except, of course, when a major catastrophe takes place. So far, we have only had one package that received damage during transit. Fortunately, the buyer bought insurance and we recovered (after some work) all the costs. When shipping puzzles, there is a lot of backstage work that buyers are not usually aware of. Packages normally arrive to their destination within the estimated delivery time. However, there is always something happening that requires attention. Problems with shipping companies and Customs One package needed 4 months to reach to its destination in the USA. We were able to track it and watched it cross the Atlantic Ocean three times until it finally arrived. Another box went to Italy, but they sent it to a storehouse of the shipping company... 300 km away from its destination. No wonder that they kept saying they couldn't find the street. In another occasion, they returned a box to me...

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450, Art, Waddington

450, Waddington, Diana Hunting, Peter Paul Rubens

Diana Hunting is a painting that belongs to the studio of Peter Paul Rubens that you can admire at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Thanks to the company Waddington (which years later would become Waddingtons) we have this small and delightful puzzle version. It is unfortunate that jigsaw puzzle brands are not publishing puzzles with classic art anymore. Perhaps that's why puzzle enthusiasts are still looking for these puzzles 50 years after Waddinton produced them. The pieces have a lot of very different forms. In fact, there are not any rows or columns, like most contemporary puzzles. For that reason, I wouldn't know whether the puzzle was complete or not just by verifying the pieces. It was a good excuse to put together this quality puzzle. The pieces are thick and solid. Due to the great variety of the cut, it was a very enjoyable experience (albeit short). Diana the Huntress In the center of the image we can see Diana, who was the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature, associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She has the identifying crescent on her head. Several nymphs are surrounding her, and one of them is...

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White Puzzle in the Movie “Sleuth” (1972)

The Japanese brand Beverly started producing not long ago some puzzles with no pattern at all. Just a solid black or a solid white puzzle. They first commercialized small 100 pieces puzzles of this type. Then they got bolder and published 150, 300, and 1000 pieces versions. Finally, they came up with a 2000 pieces version. If the level of difficulty can be measured as difficult, very difficult, and extremely difficult, this puzzle defies classification and it is defined as Torture. In fact, there is a warning in the box: For masochists only. Users refer to it as white torture, white hell, pure hell, or pure white hell. There are some people that have completed the 1000 piece version, but not many brave enough to attempt the 2000 piece version. I wonder whether it is more difficult than the 5000 piece version by Ravensburger of The Night Watch. One day, talking about puzzles and movies, @aschenbach13 pointed out that there was an old movie where such puzzle appeared: Sleuth, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1972. That means that they came up with the idea of a white puzzle 40 years before the Japanese manufacturer. A white puzzle and other games Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) is a...

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1500, Art, MB

1500, MB, It’s a Doge’s Life on the Grand Canal, Clarke

This puzzle is very unusual, and it is not just because it only has two corners. It is an illustration of the Grand Canal in Venice with a lot of really minute details. Although the title in the box is simply Venice, the complete title of the illustration is It's a Doge's Life on the Grand Canal, by Graham Clarke. MB produced it in 1992. When I verified the puzzle, I got 1504 pieces. However, due to the very particular shape, there was no way to know whether the puzzle was complete or incomplete. For that reason, I put it together eventually, and I'm glad I did. The pieces have a very snug fit that I liked, although they seemed slightly different to other MB puzzles. I found the puzzle more challenging than I had expected. Buildings, boats, ships, inscriptions, text... There are a lot of details that are difficult to distinguish unless you have very good eyesight or you look very, very close. This puzzle would probably have been more enjoyable in 3000 pieces. In any case, it was very fun and it was luckily complete. I listed it later in the online store and the puzzle went to new hands...

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500, Art, Nathan

500, Nathan, The Gypsy Girl, by Frans Hals

The Gypsy Girl is a beautiful small puzzle that the company Fernand Nathan published in 1973. The name of Fernand Nathan still appeared in the boxes of Nathan puzzles manufactured in the 70's. It was a publishing company that Fernand Nathan started in 1881 and continued to be a family business until 1979. After that, the name Nathan remained, but the company passed to other hands. We tend to repeat too often that past times were better. However, this is quite true with regards to the choices that jigsaw puzzle companies are making these days when they select their images for their catalogs. For that reason, it is so refreshing to find these old little gems. It seems that Nathan had much better taste 40 years ago than today. A refreshing Gypsy Girl Frans Hals was a master of portrait. For that reason, it is no surprise that this portrait is a masterpiece. Hals was a master of the technique of painting with a visible brushstroke (something previously seen as a flaw). Vincent van Gogh admired his technique, and in the 19th century, many artists would follow it, particularly among the Impressionists. So, we can say that Hals introduced in the 17th century a...

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1500, Art, Ravensburger

1500, Ravensburger, The Dinner at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, Jeanniot

The Dinner at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, by Pierre-Georges Jeanniot, is not one of my favorite puzzles. That doesn't mean it is not a nice and entertaining puzzle, which it is. Besides, it is always a pleasure to complete a Ravensburger puzzle due to the good quality of their pieces. However, I don't think I would have chosen it in the first place if I had had a choice. We are all human and we all make mistakes. I sold this puzzle to a customer in Poland, complete and with the pieces in excellent condition. However, when my customer finished the puzzle, he discovered that there was a foreign piece. That meant that the puzzle was actually incomplete. Ops! I think I can always detect foreign pieces, but I couldn't detect this one. I found and bought another copy of the puzzle, hoping that it would be compatible with my customer's copy. That way, I could get a replacement piece for him. However, the copy was not compatible. Then, I assembled the puzzle and sent it to my customer in layers. Eventually he had the whole puzzle replaced and his work putting it together was not lost. At home at the Hotel...

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750, Art, Nathan

750, Nathan, Hunting near Fontainebleau, Carle Vernet

When I verify an incomplete puzzle, I always hope that I made a mistake, but that never happens. The Hunting near Fontainebleau had two missing pieces when I verified it, and it had two missing pieces when I completed it. It's a shame, because it is a small beautiful puzzle that now will be added to the Missing Pieces repository. Hunting at Fontainebleau Today Carle Vernet lived and worked between the 18th and the 19th century. The hunting scene that he captured might look like something from the past. It is difficult to imagine that the artist could have painted it just last Winter. The Forest of Fontainebleau, which is only 60 km. away from Paris, is a very popular location for tourists. However, it has also been a hunting place for around 1000 years. They still hunt deer with horses and hounds, although following certain restrictions (only Tuesdays and Saturdays, from October to February). Apart from that, there is no major difference between the scene that Vernet painted two hundred years ago. We could see that same scene at the Forest of Fontainebleau in the present. These smaller puzzles are a good relief when you have been working for some time on a...

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5000, Art, Ravensburger

5000, Ravensburger, The Night Watch, Rembrandt

There is a reason why The Night Watch, which Ravensburger produced in 1977, still appears quite often (usually in used condition), despite the fact that it is more than 40 years old. Other large puzzles of the late 70's and 80's are very rare, like Country Fair, for example, which Ravensburger published just two years later. Now that I have completed it, I know the reason. It is one of the most difficult jigsaw puzzles out there. I remember when I completed years ago the 6000 pieces Schmidt version of The Allegory of Spring. Back then, I felt it was a real challenge to complete those last thousand pieces, which were mostly dark. In this case, it was the other way around. After placing one thousand pieces, I had around four thousand pieces left that were mostly dark. This puzzle doesn't compare to any puzzle that I have assembled before. In fact, I have now the feeling that I got my Master's Degree in puzzles. Before The Night Watch, I was just an undergraduate student. Now I truly feel that I can put together ANY jigsaw puzzle. The Night Watch becomes the "Nightmare". Soon after you place all the pieces that have distinct fields...

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1000, Art, Clementoni

1000, Clementoni, Moulin Rouge, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

When I started this puzzle, I knew that there was a missing piece. It should have 999 pieces, but there were only 998 pieces. Some time ago, when this happened, I used to verify the puzzle a second time. My hope was that I had made a mistake, but the second verification gave always the same result. It was a shame, because this puzzle by Clementoni with a poster of the Moulin Rouge by Toulouse-Lautrec was very unusual. However, after buying more than 200 incomplete puzzles, it is not disappointing anymore. It's part of what we do at Rare Puzzles: being sure that we only list the complete ones. Initially, I was listing the incomplete puzzles in the online store at very low prices. However, when I decided to start the Missing Pieces replacement service, I thought it was better to keep them, put them together, and offer them for replacements. So, I have accepted the idea that I am now a puzzle enthusiast that will only assemble incomplete puzzles. Moulin Rouge: La Goulue That is the complete title of this poster by Toulouse-Lautrec. It was a color lithograph from 1891. Although they printed around 3000 copies, most of them were pasted as...

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A New Project to Complement Rare Puzzles

Today, I have started a new project: www.tupuzzle.com. Since 2015, I have been able to help a lot of puzzle fans and enthusiasts to increase their collections. I purposely avoided the expression "complete their collections" because we all know it is impossible. Hardcore puzzle fans always find new projects. In any case, I didn't leave any stone unturned in order to locate puzzles everywhere. Later, I put them all together in a single place where anyone could get them. Many people found it much easier to buy them at Rare Puzzles instead of spending their time and effort looking for them. After a long learning experience (and around 200 incomplete puzzles that their owners sold me as complete), Rare Puzzles has started to take form and consolidate, although there are still a lot of features that we need to include. If fact, it is a never ending process, but the site is improving one step at a time. It is interesting to consider how things happen sometimes, even when we had different plans. Since Rare Puzzles specializes in out of catalog puzzles, I couldn't include in the store current puzzles from different brands that are widely available in stores. If I had done...

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Legal Information Added

The website has been under maintenance for a whole week. I apologize for it. I have been writing all the legal information and i took longer than expected. There was some mandatory information that Rare Puzzles didn't include, so we were out of compliance. For that reason, I couldn't open it again until all the documentation was ready. Some parts of it were very technical and some other parts were not easy to develop. But the work is done now. These documents are legal information requirements and will appear from now on at the footer of the site. All users must know and accept them: Legal Notice. Terms & Conditions. Privacy Policy. Cookies Policy. And some more news very soon...

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1500, Art, Ravensburger

1500, Ravensburger, The Four Days’ Battle, Abraham Storck

Naval battle images like The Four Days' Battle make beautiful puzzles. That's why most jigsaw puzzle manufacturers have used these images in their catalogs for decades. Several classic puzzles come to mind, like the extraordinary 6000 pieces version of The Battle of Lepanto, by Andrea Vicentino. However, for some reason naval battles are not popular anymore. As a consequence, all those puzzles are now out of catalog and very difficult to find. In fact, the last time a classic naval battle puzzle puzzle appeared was 1998, when Educa manufactured, again, The Battle of Lepanto, by H. Letter. Some puzzle fans say that the name naval battle is not the best for this type of puzzles. Instead, the name should be sky and sea puzzles. After all, most of the pieces belong to huge areas of sea and sky, while the ships are often just a small part of the image. While that is true, and sometimes there are large areas of solid tones that are very challenging, the truth is that most of these puzzles are magnificent. The Four Days' Battle, which Ravensburger manufactured in 1974, is a good example. It is, however, unfortunate that we need to go back more...

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1000, Art, Flamenco

1000, Flamenco, Landing Place, Jan Brueghel the Elder

The name Brueghel is very popular among puzzle enthusiasts. There are four main painters with this name and they all belong to the same family line: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and Jan Brueghel the Younger. Very often, the jigsaw manufacturer just includes the name Brueghel as the artist and nothing else. Then, there is no way to know who the real author of the painting is. In the case of this puzzle, the only information in the box is Brueghel, but we have to complete the research and find out that the real title of the painting is Landing Place, and the artist is Jan Brueghel the Elder. Other versions of Landing Place There are two larger versions of this puzzle. MB manufactured a 3000 pieces version in 1981. However, the title in the box is The Cove, which is, in fact, a small sheltered bay, like the one that appears in the painting. I don't know what source did MB use to come up with that title. The fact is that there are virtually no references online to The Cove. Two years after the version by MB, Ravensburger published another 3000 pieces version,...

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1000, Art, Selegiochi

1000, Selegiochi, Concave and Convex, Maurits Cornelis Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher is the creator of Concave and Convex, and he is one of the most interesting artists in the 20th century. One may like his paintings or not, but we must all agree that he is unique. In fact, most people are able to identify his work as soon as they see it, even if they don't know the name of the painter. Perhaps they just know he was the Dutch graphic artist that painted impossible stairs, upside down rooms, strange reflections... However, when they see one work, they know it belongs to him. For that reason, we can say that he is a quite popular artist. The M.C. Escher Foundation organizes exhibitions with his works regularly, and they always attract thousands of visitors. In fact, there was an exhibition in Madrid in 2017 for 8 months that showed around 200 works by Escher. It was one of the most visited in 2017. Concave and Convex and other dichotomies Escher got his inspiration partly on Mathematics and Geometry. Symmetry is a constant in the images he invents. For that reason, many of his paintings have a dichotomy in the title, like Concave and Convex in this case. However, we also have...

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1500, Art, Falcon

1500, Falcon, The Fire Brigade Turn Out in Kultorvet, Copenhagen, Paul Gustav Fischer

Paul Gustav Fischer is the author of The Fire Brigade Turn Out in Kultorvet, Copenhagen. It is a very interesting painting depicting a fire brigade at work in the public square of Kultorvet, in the city of Copenhagen. Kultorvet in the Past Kultorvet was created after the large Copenhagen fire of 1728, which destroyed a large part of the city. For a very long time, even before the fire, that area of the town was a site for market trade. After that, it continued to be so until the 20th century. Today, it is a beautiful pedestrian area in Copenhagen. In the photograph you can see the square of Kultorvet around the year 1890, which was during the lifetime of Paul Gustav Fischer. In fact, he completed this painting in 1900, so we can say that it looked exactly like that. The main two buildings in the background behind the smoke appear clearly in the photograph. This was a very nice puzzle, although it was very difficult to assemble. It was not due to the image itself, which includes a lot of variety in details and colors, but for a problem with the jigsaw pieces. For some reason (aging perhaps, since it was...

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2000, Art, Fame

2000, Fame, The Game of Cards, Raffaello Sorbi

The title of the this painting is The Game of Cards, and the author is the Italian artist Raffaello Sorbi. This is the first puzzle that I completed by the brand Fame. This jigsaw brand is not one of the most popular ones, but they have beautiful puzzles. Although they don't have a very large catalog available, they have been very careful in their choices. For that reason, most of their puzzles are very nice. They even have two large 5000 pieces puzzles that are extremely difficult to find: A Meeting by the Stile, by Heywood Hardy, and An Old Surrey Farm, by Robert Gallon. Cards and other Games The Game of Cards is a delightful scene where the painter has been able to capture the fun of the game. The way the four characters in the front are depicted is especially interesting. The man sitting at the table seems to be trying to understand, scratching his forehead. In the meantime, the woman sitting in front of him is explaining the reason why he probably lost. Everybody seems to be having a fun time. It is, in summary, a beautiful genre scene. Raffaello Sorbi completed, in fact, a whole series of paintings...

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1000, Art

1000, Educa, The Prophet Daniel, Michelangelo

Educa has a very long tradition of great choices for their jigsaw puzzles, particularly in terms of fine arts puzzles. This 1000 pieces version of The Prophet Daniel, by Michelangelo, is a good example. They manufactured it in the early 80's. The box corresponds to the design of their earlier puzzles, long before they started to publish them in the beautiful boxes with stripes, or the elegant white box design of the 90's. The Prophet Daniel without the Lions This fresco painting is part of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted a total of 7 prophets from the Old Testament. It was common to represent the figures of the Bible with the attributes that might help people identify them. In the case of the Prophet Daniel, the most important event in the tradition was the fact that they threw him into the den of the lions as a punishment, but an angel saved him. However, in Michelangelo's portrayal, there is no reference to the lions, which is very interesting. Instead, Michelangelo shows Daniel reading a great book, which is held up by a muscular figure from beneath it. It is interesting to note that the image of this puzzle corresponds to...

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February 4th 2018: International World Cancer Day

February 4th is the international World Cancer Day, founded by the Union for the International Cancer Control. It tries to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. However, the primary goal of the World Cancer Day is to reduce illness and death caused by cancer. If you are reading this post, chances are that cancer has touched your life or it will do it in the future. I learned it myself not long ago. I also learned to separate things that are important from things that are not. Cancer brings a lot of perspective and it helps to set priorities. Donations on World Cancer Day Today I have donated all the sales commissions collected during 2017 to the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer. They do a great job here in Spain. The Association provides information, supports research, organizes campaigns and runs programs to support families. They even have a 24/7 toll free number to provide help to patients, caregivers and relatives. However, their help comes often in a very humble form. Perhaps a volunteer listening to you in the waiting room of a hospital. There are similar associations in most countries. The American Cancer Society is one of the most...

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