After buying a puzzle, how do we know if this puzzle is good?
* Puzzle cutting
This is a major point about puzzle. In many poor quality puzzles, you can find pieces still attached together. The cutting machine did not cut the pieces neatly. Some time you may find back portion of pieces may be torn already. While for some puzzles, each pieces does not fit in nicely with their neighbouring pieces. This can be quite frustrating when you have a hard time figuring where that piece should go.
Bad puzzle cutting |
* Puzzle material
The puzzle is made of many layers of paper. Lousy puzzle will have this problem when you try to separate 2 pieces that are stuck together. If the puzzle material is not good enough, the piece will bend easily. In the process of separating the pieces, the hold between the layers of the piece may wear off due to forceful pulling. No matter how careful you try to separate it, the piece will still get damage.
Easily damaged when trying to separate this piece from another piece |
For better puzzle, the colours of the puzzle is very brilliant and rich. For poor quality ones, the colours will be a bit more dull.
* Puzzle glue
Some puzzle comes with a pack of puzzle glue that is packed in the box so that you do not need to buy a big bottle of glue. You won't be able to finish that bottle of glue unless you are a big collector of puzzles.
I believe many of us want to buy quality stuffs. Some times due to budget, we will need to go for cheaper ones. For puzzles, you can find extremely cheap ones at night markets aka pasar malam. Some neighborhood bookshops may have some affordable ones. Middle range ones can be found in major departmental stores and big bookstores or gift shops. If i don't remember wrongly, Comic connection also have some. Recently, i went to Mustafa, i found some cheap ones there too. The more expensive ones are sold in Puzzleworld.