My family calls me the "mad puzzler". Set a puzzle in front of me and get out of the way. I'll have a 500 piece done in an hour and a half and a 1000 piece done in three hours. Growing up, my Mom would do puzzles with my sister and I and we had a very specific way of doing puzzles. Sorting things of course... sky pieces here, water pieces here, edge pieces here (duh), house pieces here, horse pieces here, etc. Once it was all sorted, then the puzzling would begin in earnest. Usually the edge first and then various components with sky and water left for last because those are often brutally hard!
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| Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster from StockSnap |
My Dad and partner were/are not "mad puzzlers". I would try to engage them in doing a puzzle and give them the edge to do while I would work on some of the "guts". Alas, I'd have the guts done before they even completed the edge. It was no fun for them!
But even I can run aground on some puzzles. I don't like anything bigger than 1000 pieces as it just gets too big and unwieldy to work on. Did you know there are 18,000 piece puzzles??? Good grief... No, wait... Ravensburger makes a 40,000 piece puzzle but it has 10 distinct zones in it... No thank you.
Anyhow, what with Covid-19, I've been doing a fair few puzzles, mostly my stash of ten puzzles that I keep in the cupboard. Just a nice little 500 piece to while a way a bit of time in these long, dark winter evenings. I like to redo puzzles over and over again, they never seem to get old. But, I always look in the thrift stores to see what new puzzles they might have in stock.
The other day, I found a Cobble Hill Puzzle in Sally Ann. There's a little community near Victoria, BC, called Cobble Hill... Hmm... related? As it turns out, Cobble Hill Puzzles is a Canadian company! Based in Victoria. They have a very good reputation, scoring a 9/10 on some puzzler sites. They come in sturdy, well-designed boxes, have a nice thickness and a random cut with good variety. They fit together snugly and have an anti-glare finish. Quite nice. And... the puzzles are not manufactured in China but in Canada or the USA . If that's not enough, they are made from recycled cardboard and are printed with vegetable-based inks. Nice!
Anyhow, I bought this puzzle... Nice little candy puzzle, I thought.
Hah!! It was hideous and I eventually gave up on it. Waaayyyyy too many red and green jelly beans. I had bought it for $4 and, what with my recent discovery of Facebook Marketplace, thought I would sell it onwards. I checked prices and while some people try to sell Cobble Hill puzzles for $20... generally speaking a 1000 piece puzzle goes for $10 and a 500 piece goes for $5. I toyed with the idea of trying to get $15 or $20 for it but... these puzzles sell new for $24, so that seemed a bit ridiculous. Plus, the people selling the 1000 piece puzzle for $20 were still sitting on it a week later with no takers.
So, I posted the puzzle online and... within two hours it was sold. Huh. Go figure. Bought for $4... sold for $10. That's not a bad little profit. And... the lady who bought it later turned around and re-listed it on FB Marketplace for $10. A nice little circular economy! All of the mad puzzlers know what the going rate is for puzzles and stick to that. It's only the entrepreneurs who are trying to make a killing in the puzzle marketplace. Although... the lady who bought the candy puzzle didn't post a picture of it completed (to show that there are no pieces missing) sooo... I'm wondering if she actually gave up on it too! Like I said... it was fiendishly hideously difficult.
Now, any time I go into a thrift store, I head straight for the puzzle section. They are a hot commodity you know... what with Covid and all. I scored big time in a couple of thrift stores a few weekends ago. I found another Cobble Hill Puzzle. Hooray! It was actually not bad and I managed to finish this one!
But... the pièce de résistance was finding three Ravensburger puzzles. They are the highest quality puzzles out there, manufactured in Germany. Excellent box, nice thickness, beautiful fit, nice image reproduction and anti-glare finish.
This puzzle wasn't actually all that bad to work on. Finished it... posted it on FB Marketplace... sold within a few hours. I had a look and some people are selling Ravensburger puzzles on eBay for $30 or more... But that involves a whole extra layer of complexity... Although turning a $4 puzzle into a $30 sale isn't a bad return on investment.
Then there was this one of Times Square in NY... it was also brutal, but it got done...
There are a tonne of puzzles out in the thrift stores on some days but a lot of them are the cheap dollar store puzzles... or ridiculously difficult ones. I'm aiming for the sweet spot of good quality and good do-ability. I get to enjoy them and then turn around and sell them for $10 (or $5 for a 500 piece). So far they've all been snapped up within a day of posting, which is nice.
I like the high quality ones because I know that they can go through many hands and be enjoyed many times before they finally die a sad puzzle death. Kudos to Cobble Hill and Ravensburger for sticking with quality!
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