I was able to get a MasterPieces 2015 puzzle catalog. It’s a very nice line-up and I am looking forward to seeing the quality of the brand in the latest puzzles.
4 brand new Kinuko Y. Craft fantasy puzzles. My favorite “squeal” moment while browsing the catalog are these 4 new Kinuko Craft puzzles. Thankfully they come in 1000 pieces. These 4 images come in 2 box types. There’s the white box “Glitter” version and “Collectible Tin” which appears not to have the glitter effect. I’m looking forward to these!
2 new “Cat-ology” by Geoff Tristram — Flora and Fothergill.
Those who saw my interview with Geoff Tristram will know about the “Cat-ology” series from MasterPieces. We get 2 brand new images this year — “Flora” (love the colors on this one) and “Fothergill”. Yes, please!
2 new “Alice in Wonderland” fantasy puzzles from Shu and a Cinderella.
Shu is a Japanese fantasy artist. His work is very popular in Japanese puzzles and not as much in the US and UK. But MasterPieces’s ‘book boxes’ puzzles previous had 2 Shu fantasy images of Alice in Wonderland, and this year they add 2 more, “Lost in Wonderland” and “Tea Party Time”. Nice.
They also have a new Cinderella puzzle in the book boxes. I’m not sure of the artist.
New series: “Time Away” with 4 puzzles.
This is a new series with a new box design. Seems like some of these images are adapted from MasterPieces panoramic series.
“Hometown Heroes” and “US Army” puzzles by Dona Gelsinger.
I previously reported these as new Eurographics puzzles, but they’re not, they’re MasterPieces. I love all four of these!
You can see bigger images of these here.
Tribal Spirit — New Series, 1000 pieces
Another new series for MasterPieces is “Tribal Spirit” which appear to all be Native American themes, but with very different art styles.
2 new Bonnie White “Heartland” puzzles, an ‘ez-grip’ Bonnie White, and a 2000 piece Bonnie White
I’m not sure all of these are new, but I haven’t noticed them before so I’m putting them up. I like the PA Dutch design of the ez-grip 1000 piece puzzle (those puzzles have large pieces, so they’re the same size as a regular 2000 piece puzzle once completed).
2 new “Saturday Evening Posts” puzzles, 1000 pieces
Wheels, Cruisin’, and Childhood Dream series — new images
MasterPieces has one of the most man-pleasing puzzle catalogs I’ve ever seen. They have a number of series based around cars, one on railroads, and a lot of sports themed puzzles. They also have a line of John Deere and FarmAll tractor puzzles. Below are new additions for 2015 to three of their car-themed series.
New art in the “Railways” series
New Sports Collages:
2 new wildlife puzzles in the “Peek Season” series
New Alan Giana puzzles in their “Lazy Days” series, 750 pieces.
See anything here you like? You can see MasterPieces’s complete line-up on their website.
And you can find some of their new puzzles on Simple Pasttimes.
JJ
Thank you for this post. I have been checking almost daily to see if Masterpieces has updated their website with their new puzzles, but as yet they haven’t. I love their Bonnie White “Heartland” (Americana) series and there are currently two new ones that have just been released – “Friday Night Hoedown” and “Telling the Bees.” These are available online only at the Spilsbury website but I found both of them for sale at my local Books-A-Million this past week.
Also, in your brand comparison of Masterpieces, you said that their quality is not consistent and I have certainly found this to be true. While waiting for the new Heartland puzzles to be issued, I purchased one of their “Little Shoppe” puzzles. It was made in China just like the Heartland series, but the quality of the pieces was not as good. I started putting it together and gave up. For example, one piece had the knob on the very edge of the puzzle. Ugh. And the pieces just didn’t feel as sturdy. I’ve already opened my new Hearltand puzzles and the quality is just as good as the others in that series, so I’m not sure why the same puzzle-making methods are not used on all of their products. Thank you again!
Hi, Bernadette. I edited the post with the new Bonnie Whites. I was going to include them the first time, but there are so many I feel like I’m reproducing the entire catalog. lol
Yeah, the MasterPieces site is not updated, which is a shame. Hopefully they will update too.
I haven’t been getting the “Heartland” series because I’m not as fond of the 500 piece size. But now that I have been doing ‘multi-puzzle’ sets, I’ll reconsider. The Heartlands would look nice as 4×500 on one mounting board.
They certainly would!
By the way, I know that “Johnny Ott’s Hex Signs” is not a new design for Masterpieces as I’ve owned it for some time now (I believe they’ve just repackaged it with the EZ Grip feature.) I’m not sure about “Out To Sea.” I shy away from anything over 1000 pieces. LOL 🙂
What’s an EZ Grip got that the normal pieces don’t have ?
They’re just larger pieces. Basically it’s 2-to-1, so a 1000 piece EZ-Grip puzzle is the same final size as a 2000 piece regular puzzle.
Even though I already own the “Johnny Otts” design, I may have to purchase the new EZ Grip 1000 version. I told myself I wasn’t going to purchase anymore Masterpieces puzzles except the Heartland series ( after my experience with the “Little Shoppes” puzzle), and then the day before yesterday I was in my local Books-a-Million and they had some of the older Memory Lane EZ Grip 300 puzzles on sale for 50% off. So I bought one. I couldn’t believe the wonderful quality! I put together a lot of Springboks and the quality and the cut of the pieces was very similar to them. I’m going back to the store this week to pick up a few more of these Memory Lane puzzles! 🙂
Hi, Bernadette. That’s good to hear about the quality of the “Memory Lane” puzzles. Thanks for letting us know! I do plan to get the EZ-Grip Johnny Otts puzzle and I’ll report on it when I do.
Jane
Thank you!