How long would it take your family to put this puzzle together?

My guests checking out today left a gift of a 1,000 piece puzzle of a popular local attraction. The box says it measures 14 inches by 39 inches. The only flat surface I have is the dining room table. I am considering donating it to Goodwill store.

Now if people typically put a 1,000 piece puzzle together over a few hours on a rainy day, then I will keep it. But I purposely tossed any games that require all pieces…Ex - Scrabble. I inherited it and counting all letter pieces…at least one was missing. I know some say they would be okay with it. But, I also know some die hard players who would not be okay with spending two hours in competition, and then the beloved “blank tile” is missing. I even read a review once of a family complaining that the Scrabble game was missing tiles.

I made the decision to provide family games where missing pieces are not necessary to play the game. So, how quickly can you put together this puzzle? I either want to gift to a guest who wants to take it away, or keep if people can really put this together in an afternoon.

Then…how many of you puzzle people would care if pieces are missing?

Thanks.

How very kind of your guest - what a lovely, thoughtful gift …

I’d take it straight along to the Charity shop, church rummage sale or donate it to friends with badly-behaved children.

And I’d put a note in your House Manual that chocolate and wine are most acceptable as gifts

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When I was a child we stayed at a cottage in Cape Cod. The host had a puzzle with kitties all over it. After spending hours putting it together, we discovered that one cat was missing half his face. That was like 40 years ago and I still remember it. Don’t traumatize the children, just donate it…

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Donate it. As you know, pieces will get lost and that will indeed annoy some people. It would annoy me. I’d never rate a host low for such a thing or make any mention of it at all, but it would annoy me.

Also, I think it would take even a whole family at least a week to put together a puzzle that large. You’d probably just end up having to unassembled a half put together puzzle as often as not.

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OK…thanks folks!! I won’t be keeping it then. I think I will offer it to the next guests who check in. They can take it as a souvenir. Surely someone can use it to give as a Christmas gift or something.

I did a 500 piece one once and framed it. Haha I did it over a few hrs with some breaks.

So what do people do with puzzles after they complete them…if they don’t frame them? Do they start all over?

I believe that they put them on a shelf with all the other puzzles, and then when they downsize, their adult children have to deal with all the clutter. Not that I am speaking from experience, of course.

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I guess sell them is a good option. I’m selling all my dvds at the moment. Haven’t used them in ten years. Lol

My mother in law, bless her heart, must have 3 dozen ginormous framed puzzles she’s assembled over the years. I don’t think many people do this however.

There was a craze in the late '90’s for 3D puzzles. Castles, victorian mansions, famous buildings, skyscrapers. They were cute - the pieces had foam backing and some of them were quite large and needed internal cardboard structure. I made about 15 of them and decorated my library. They went great with the assembled wood dinosaur kits. One of my cats decided that he LOVED to chew on both these items, so then I had dessicated buildings and dinosaur skeleton pieces everywhere. I finally sold them off at a garage sale last year - some 10-year old boys were really excited by the skyscrapers. But yeah, it was kind of a space issue after a while.

I had one of those! It was a replica of Chatres and even tried to include the stain glass windows. That was one of the many items that the aforementioned barn clear-out took care of. I certainly hope that some child found it at the Goodwill Store [well the local version of that] and learned about this marvelous cathedral.

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