Arizona Map Puzzle 
by Guest Writer Roberta Shore

We invite you to read Roberta Shore's review on the following jigsaw puzzle. Since she has discovered the advantages of jigsaw puzzling, she has reviewed/journaled several that will be available on this website. 
Arizona Map Jigsaw Puzzle Sunsout Random Cut 1000 pieces Finished size: 23" x 28"

Arizona Map Puzzle - Roberta's Review

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Arizona Map Jigsaw Puzzle Sunsout Random Cut 1000 pieces Finished size: 23" x 28"

Arizona Map Jigsaw Puzzle

Sunsout jigsaw puzzles

Random Cut 

1000 pieces

Finished size: 23" x 28"

My Confident Newbie Difficulty rating: Medium to fairly Easy

Having been puzzling now for 10 months, and completing 66 puzzles of various difficulty, I found this puzzle fairly easy, but only for one reason (more on that in a sec). Even so, I do think a new puzzler would find it more challenging.

Quality: There were some issues: false fits in the frame, making building it frustrating, and loose piece fit, making moving even small sections annoying. Otherwise, the box is square, large and only fairly sturdy. It contained a sealed bag of pieces, some puzzle dust and no poster. Color match to the full box top pic was fine. The pieces are sturdy, they have some shine. None were together uncut, or actually damaged, however, the remnants of some of the blue backing were still attached to a number of the pieces. No pieces were missing - that would have ruined my ending to this review!

Now, for that one reason, starting with the mantra - find the edge pieces and sort by color. Oh my, the edge pieces — so many false fits I thought for sure pieces were missing. It took quite a while to get it together. The sorting was pretty straight forward. I sorted the sky, the Colorado River, the red state outline, the big Arizona, the many, many mainly yellow pieces, all the other multicolor pieces, the smaller text locations, and the bigger text cities and towns. That was the secret to saying this was easy.

Construction: I filled in the sky, then pieced and placed (with that aforementioned annoyance) all the locations where they probably belonged in the puzzle. There was now so much color information to piece to. I filled in the big Arizona, some of the Colorado River and parts of the red outline. Then came the rest. Two things - (1) this is a random cut puzzle, even many of the “traditional” shaped pieces can be oddly skewed. So, sorting by shape is definitely more complicated, perhaps even less useful. (2) The huge pile of mostly yellow pieces was intimidating, sub-sorting to what end? To be honest, I did nothing but dump them in the box top and shuffle through them. Many found homes more quickly than anticipated. The somewhat smaller pile of “other” pieces got the same treatment in the box bottom, with the same result. When down to a reasonable amount of pieces, I did arrange them by main color and shape.

This was so surprising! This was so much fun! Why? I suppose I bought this puzzle (well, it was #3 in a buy two get one free sale) because I live in Arizona. It is not my favorite style of puzzle. I shy away from “busy”. Imagine if there were no words, just more native animals and plants. Thank goodness Arizona has so many tourist locations!

My grades:

Quality: B-, Fun Factor: an amazing A+

Note: Don’t disregard Sunsout. It is an affordable brand with tons of different themes and puzzle designs. I’ve done several; one had a missing piece, one had serious quality issues. Both were replaced without question. I wanted a replacement for the one with the missing piece. I was concerned the quality issue on the other would surface again, and I was allowed a different puzzle of my choice. So great customer service for sure!

There's More To Jigsaw Puzzles Than Pieces Book by Linda Richard. A compilation of 50+ jigsaw puzzle related topics, tips and tricks written in conversational format for easy, light reading.There's More To Jigsaw Puzzles Than Pieces Book by Linda Richard. A compilation of 50+ jigsaw puzzle related topics, tips and tricks written in conversational format for easy, light reading. Click Here
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR - With her self-published book and  over 300 jigsaw puzzle reviews,  Linda has established herself as a prominent social media marketing influencer and jigsaw puzzle-preneur.  If you want to send Linda a quick message, visit her contact page here.

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