2022 Mega-Marathon wrap-up
Another very successful Mega-marathon was held this past weekend by the German online puzzle forum puzzle-forum.de. During the 72-hour event, participants build and document puzzles of any size, indicating the number of pieces done, provided that all work takes place during the time window. The total number of pieces are tallied up at the end of the event. This year crushed the previous record with 271,413 total pieces connected, by 62 participants (also a new record).
I dug deep into my collection for this year's theme, Portrait Puzzles by Italian (and Spanish) manufacturers. This included three puzzles from Apli, an obscure vintage brand from Spain that released a series of a dozen Picasso portrait puzzles ranging in sizes from 280 to 1500 pieces. The boxes are dated to 1980, and the series was meant to celebrate the centenary of Picasso (b. 1881). The puzzles were made in Spain, according to the box, and the name Spadem - Paris is indicated in the copyright info. The puzzles are of nice quality, but have extremely loose fitting pieces, which made it difficult to work quickly.
Another featured brand was International Team, an Italian company perhaps better known for making some of the earliest role-playing board games in the European style, right around the late 1970s which is also when D & D first came out. IT puzzles are pretty legendary to puzzle connoisseurs - their motives are highly unusual and sophisticated, but always with a playful element. They made puzzles from the mid-1970s until around 1983, when they went out of business. The culmination of their puzzle production was the famous "Zodiac" series, which consisted of twelve 1500-piece puzzles, one for each sign, with artwork featured by contemporary Italian illustrators, but heavily borrowing the style of Alphonse Mucha. These puzzles feature a metallic, silk-paper finish which is extremely beautiful and of superb quality.
I also selected one Ricordi puzzle that was produced during their "red box" period, circa 2010.
I usually set a goal for myself before the marathon, and this time I was going to try again for the "pyramid" - 3 x 1000 pieces, 2 x 1500 pieces, and 1 x 2000 pieces, in that order. I've already completed a pyramid a few times before, and I figured I would be able to do it again this year without any problems. What became clear, by the first evening, was that I had selected some difficult images, so I would have to work a lot harder this time around.
The weekend started off without a hitch - the first puzzle was "The Sculptor, 1931" by Picasso/Apli. The colorful cubist image consisted of lots of lines and I got through it quickly, in 3 hr., 9 mins. However, I did note on this, my first Apli puzzle, a couple of difficulties: the loose fit, the slippery texture of the pieces which often made them difficult to pick up, and the cut. I thought that the cut would be fully grid-like, with all corners lining up perfectly, because this is typical for vintage puzzles from continental Europe, but in fact many of the pieces are slightly off-set.
The cut became a real issue once I got to the second puzzle, another Apli 1000, Picasso's "La Salchichona, 1917." This gorgeous puzzle, probably my favorite of the bunch, was made using a Seurat-like series of paint dots. It really slowed me down as the evening turned into the wee hours. After 4 hours I had a long way to go, and had to wait until morning to get back to it with a meagre 5 hours' sleep. I finished the puzzle in 5 hr., 49 mins., which considering the image, was a pretty fast time. But I was beginning to fall behind my typical pace.
The third puzzle, "La Polvere di Pirlimpinpin, 1907" by Italian artist Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868-1944), is of a spectacularly colorful and elaborate 6-sheet poster promoting a three-act musical by Constantine Lombardo and Carlo Vizzotta. Premiering in Milan on February 24, 1908, the plot follows the misadventures involving a magic powder, which can be seen on the far left in a small white sack held by a magician. The phrase Pirlimpinpin, or Pirlimpimpim, translates loosely to snake-oil, and has been used in both French theatre, and there was also a famous children's book series in Brazil published during the 1920s with the same name. This puzzle was fast and easy, and got me back on track, at 3 hr., 11 mins.
The fourth puzzle, a 1500 piece by Ricordi of Gustav Klimt's "Woman Lovers, 1916-17" wasn't the best quality as I had to spend several minutes breaking apart many pieces that weren't fully cut through. The print is also grainy, which certainly didn't help, and is indicative of the last years of production at Ricordi when their previously high standards started to slip. With a lot of red, this wasn't an easy image either, but the very easy (and familiar) Ricordi cut made it manageable. I finished it in 7 hr., 35 mins.
The fifth puzzle was a 1500 piece silk metallic puzzle by International Team of Alphonse Mucha's "Flower, 1897." Not a part of the Zodiac series, Flower is in some ways an inspiration to the series. Jorge at rarepuzzles.com has written a great review of the puzzle here.. I had never done a metallic finish puzzle before, and it didn't take long to adjust to it. The pieces were silky smooth and fit precisely, and it is a puzzle I'd easily re-make again. The image was quite challenging due to all of the flower details, and it took 8 hr., 2 mins. to finish.
At that point I had only the 2000 piece to finish the pyramid, and it was just after 5 p.m. on Saturday, with a little less than 25 hours until the marathon ended. I was really tired already, and when I started spreading out the pieces for the "Moët and Chandon, 1899" print made by Mucha for the champagne company, my spirits fell. This looked like it might be a 20 hour puzzle, and I would have to forego a lot of sleep to finish it. Everything was a hurdle: most of the edge pieces were white, all of the image was pixellated (intentionally, it seems) and the circularity of the design always makes a grid-cut puzzle harder. I considered finding a substitute, but I ended up sticking to my choice. The first four hours I barely got anything done, trying first the border, then the white/colored pieces, then the reds, looking for the path of least resistance. My level of concentration was at its peak for the marathon as time seemed to stand still. By half past midnight, after 7 hr., 15 mins. of nonstop puzzling, I had managed to get the outer details, upper graphic, and all of the white pieces done, with the center figure still remaining. The next morning I started early again and slowly made it through all of the pixellated pieces, with the pattern surrounding the woman's head being by far the hardest area. I completed the puzzle at around 3 p.m., with a total time of 14 hr., 2 mins.
I managed an extra 500 piece puzzle, "La Vie, 1903" by Picasso, from the Apli series, in 1 hr., 53 mins. This puzzle was quite muted in color and wasn't easy either, but by then I was more tuned in to the Apli cut.
In all, I completed seven puzzles for a total of 8,500 pieces while puzzling for 43 hr., 41 mins. I am glad that I stuck with my initial choices, even if they weren't the easiest ones. I love the colorful and playful nature of all these puzzles.
Robert Beall aka Maplewoodbob also took part, completing more than 6,500 pieces worth of Norman Rockwell puzzles, and David(USA) aka son2307ic placed an impressive 9,000 pieces, including three 2000 Trefl landscape puzzles and two 1500 pieces ones as well.
2022 Mega-Marathon wrap-up
Another very successful Mega-marathon was held this past weekend by the German online puzzle forum puzzle-forum.de. During the 72-hour event, participants build and document puzzles of any size, indicating the number of pieces done, provided that all work takes place during the time window. The total number of pieces are tallied up at the end of the event. This year crushed the previous record with 271,413 total pieces connected, by 62 participants (also a new record).
I dug deep into my collection for this year's theme, Portrait Puzzles by Italian (and Spanish) manufacturers. This included three puzzles from Apli, an obscure vintage brand from Spain that released a series of a dozen Picasso portrait puzzles ranging in sizes from 280 to 1500 pieces. The boxes are dated to 1980, and the series was meant to celebrate the centenary of Picasso (b. 1881). The puzzles were made in Spain, according to the box, and the name Spadem - Paris is indicated in the copyright info. The puzzles are of nice quality, but have extremely loose fitting pieces, which made it difficult to work quickly.
Another featured brand was International Team, an Italian company perhaps better known for making some of the earliest role-playing board games in the European style, right around the late 1970s which is also when D & D first came out. IT puzzles are pretty legendary to puzzle connoisseurs - their motives are highly unusual and sophisticated, but always with a playful element. They made puzzles from the mid-1970s until around 1983, when they went out of business. The culmination of their puzzle production was the famous "Zodiac" series, which consisted of twelve 1500-piece puzzles, one for each sign, with artwork featured by contemporary Italian illustrators, but heavily borrowing the style of Alphonse Mucha. These puzzles feature a metallic, silk-paper finish which is extremely beautiful and of superb quality.
I also selected one Ricordi puzzle that was produced during their "red box" period, circa 2010.
I usually set a goal for myself before the marathon, and this time I was going to try again for the "pyramid" - 3 x 1000 pieces, 2 x 1500 pieces, and 1 x 2000 pieces, in that order. I've already completed a pyramid a few times before, and I figured I would be able to do it again this year without any problems. What became clear, by the first evening, was that I had selected some difficult images, so I would have to work a lot harder this time around.
The weekend started off without a hitch - the first puzzle was "The Sculptor, 1931" by Picasso/Apli. The colorful cubist image consisted of lots of lines and I got through it quickly, in 3 hr., 9 mins. However, I did note on this, my first Apli puzzle, a couple of difficulties: the loose fit, the slippery texture of the pieces which often made them difficult to pick up, and the cut. I thought that the cut would be fully grid-like, with all corners lining up perfectly, because this is typical for vintage puzzles from continental Europe, but in fact many of the pieces are slightly off-set.
The cut became a real issue once I got to the second puzzle, another Apli 1000, Picasso's "La Salchichona, 1917." This gorgeous puzzle, probably my favorite of the bunch, was made using a Seurat-like series of paint dots. It really slowed me down as the evening turned into the wee hours. After 4 hours I had a long way to go, and had to wait until morning to get back to it with a meagre 5 hours' sleep. I finished the puzzle in 5 hr., 49 mins., which considering the image, was a pretty fast time. But I was beginning to fall behind my typical pace.
The third puzzle, "La Polvere di Pirlimpinpin, 1907" by Italian artist Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868-1944), is of a spectacularly colorful and elaborate 6-sheet poster promoting a three-act musical by Constantine Lombardo and Carlo Vizzotta. Premiering in Milan on February 24, 1908, the plot follows the misadventures involving a magic powder, which can be seen on the far left in a small white sack held by a magician. The phrase Pirlimpinpin, or Pirlimpimpim, translates loosely to snake-oil, and has been used in both French theatre, and there was also a famous children's book series in Brazil published during the 1920s with the same name. This puzzle was fast and easy, and got me back on track, at 3 hr., 11 mins.
The fourth puzzle, a 1500 piece by Ricordi of Gustav Klimt's "Woman Lovers, 1916-17" wasn't the best quality as I had to spend several minutes breaking apart many pieces that weren't fully cut through. The print is also grainy, which certainly didn't help, and is indicative of the last years of production at Ricordi when their previously high standards started to slip. With a lot of red, this wasn't an easy image either, but the very easy (and familiar) Ricordi cut made it manageable. I finished it in 7 hr., 35 mins.
The fifth puzzle was a 1500 piece silk metallic puzzle by International Team of Alphonse Mucha's "Flower, 1897." Not a part of the Zodiac series, Flower is in some ways an inspiration to the series. Jorge at rarepuzzles.com has written a great review of the puzzle here.. I had never done a metallic finish puzzle before, and it didn't take long to adjust to it. The pieces were silky smooth and fit precisely, and it is a puzzle I'd easily re-make again. The image was quite challenging due to all of the flower details, and it took 8 hr., 2 mins. to finish.
At that point I had only the 2000 piece to finish the pyramid, and it was just after 5 p.m. on Saturday, with a little less than 25 hours until the marathon ended. I was really tired already, and when I started spreading out the pieces for the "Moët and Chandon, 1899" print made by Mucha for the champagne company, my spirits fell. This looked like it might be a 20 hour puzzle, and I would have to forego a lot of sleep to finish it. Everything was a hurdle: most of the edge pieces were white, all of the image was pixellated (intentionally, it seems) and the circularity of the design always makes a grid-cut puzzle harder. I considered finding a substitute, but I ended up sticking to my choice. The first four hours I barely got anything done, trying first the border, then the white/colored pieces, then the reds, looking for the path of least resistance. My level of concentration was at its peak for the marathon as time seemed to stand still. By half past midnight, after 7 hr., 15 mins. of nonstop puzzling, I had managed to get the outer details, upper graphic, and all of the white pieces done, with the center figure still remaining. The next morning I started early again and slowly made it through all of the pixellated pieces, with the pattern surrounding the woman's head being by far the hardest area. I completed the puzzle at around 3 p.m., with a total time of 14 hr., 2 mins.
I managed an extra 500 piece puzzle, "La Vie, 1903" by Picasso, from the Apli series, in 1 hr., 53 mins. This puzzle was quite muted in color and wasn't easy either, but by then I was more tuned in to the Apli cut.
In all, I completed seven puzzles for a total of 8,500 pieces while puzzling for 43 hr., 41 mins. I am glad that I stuck with my initial choices, even if they weren't the easiest ones. I love the colorful and playful nature of all these puzzles.
Robert Beall aka Maplewoodbob also took part, completing more than 6,500 pieces worth of Norman Rockwell puzzles, and David(USA) aka son2307ic placed an impressive 9,000 pieces, including three 2000 Trefl landscape puzzles and two 1500 pieces ones as well.