Review: “Buried Blueprints: The Lost City of Atlantis” by Al Lorenz, Master Pieces — 7.5/10

Title: Buried Blueprints: The lost City of Atlantis

Publisher: Master Pieces (US), Published 2012, Artist: Al Lorenz, 1000 Pieces

Review by Philip   

Philip’s Rating: 7.5

From Jane: This is Philip’s first review for Jigsaw Junkie. Thanks for your submission!

Review:

We don’t buy a lot of new puzzles and this was one of five that we got second-hand. These are interesting pictures with a lot of quips written on the puzzle to describe the places depicted. Some are humorous and a number of the places refer to fictional places.

Box Quality: (6/10)

The box itself is rather flimsy made out of thin cardboard. The pictures show the odd shape, not really triangular but definitely not square. The back of the box has teasers about the puzzle and hints on what to look for once it’s done.

Because the box doesn’t have any real sides there is no extra information and no attribution for the artist. If you collect puzzles this one will give you fits and starts on how to stack/display them. I have five and I couldn’t find a configuration that allowed them to be stacked or displayed to allow you to see the main picture.

Inside was the puzzle in a bag with nothing else. As mentioned before, we get these second hand so if it had additional information or inclusions they have been lost in the last four years.  No idea if these were originally dusty or not.

I searched on the Master Pieces web site and couldn’t find any information on these puzzles.

Puzzle Quality: (8/10)

The quality of this puzzle is good, in line with other Master Pieces puzzles we have and the description on the JigsawJunkie site. The puzzle is not grid cut and you can see from the following exploded corner that the pieces are all random shapes. You can easily tell whether a piece fits or not. The pieces are not as thick as the Ravenburger pieces being about .5mm thinner. The pieces are not flimsy and have not started delaminating like we have seen on a few other jigsaws. They do not fit so tightly to allow large sections to be picked up but that could be due to the age of the puzzle. Overall we were satisfied with the puzzle quality.

Image: (9/10)

The picture is fairly intriguing. The colors are bright and clear, no pixilation. The snippets of text are interesting (The Gold King: actually a misnomer. The statue was stone) and worth going over and reading them all. (Skull Island: home of King Kong). The art style is consistent across the five we have and is attractive.

Assembly: (7/10)

Because of the odd shapes of the pieces this puzzle took us twice as long as a grid cut puzzle to assemble. The pieces have a variety of colors on them and it is difficult to find an area outside of the border where color helps. The pieces interlock in only one spot but finding that one spot can be a challenge. I would rate the difficulty as medium to hard.

Conclusion:

While this was enjoyable to do we would not do two of these in a row. The line seems to have been discontinued so I am not sure how many were originally made.

Also in this series: An Egyptian Chronicle, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Gladiators, Noah’s Ark, The Civil War at Sea, Dracula’s Castle, Dinosaur Island, The Legends of King Arthur, Golfer’s paradise, Mount Everest, The Great Wall of China, The World of Cats

Final Score:

Where to Find:

You can find other Master Pieces jigsaw puzzles here.