Review: “Garden Birds” by Greg and Company, Cobble Hill — 8.25/10

Publisher: Cobble Hill (Canada), 2016

Title:  “Garden Birds” by Greg & Company  500 pieces, 18″ x 24″

Review by Jane

OUR RATING: 8.25/10

Box Quality:  (8/10)
The box is shown above and below. It’s an attractive rectangular box similar in size to Ravensburger and Jumbo, but it has a nice linen finish. The front does not show the artist or image name.

Back:

The back is a generic Cobble Hill back. There’s nothing specific about the artist or puzzle image here.

The sides:

The sides have a nice close-up detail from the image, the Cobble Hill logo, piece count, puzzle dimensions, and puzzle name. The name of the artist is shown in small print on all four sides. The Cobble Hill boxes all have a similar design but the color is unique to coordinate with each puzzle. The boxes look nice arranged together on a shelf.

Inside the box:

There’s nothing inside the box except the bag of puzzle pieces and a small warranty sheet.

The Image: 9/10

This is a sweet bird image with a lot going for it. I like the variety of colors and sizes in the birds as well as the flowers and the still life objects. The straw hat, blue pitcher, garden gloves, spade, table, and seed packets all help break the image up into very easy to recognize components. There’s a bit more challenge with the flowers because the pink and white flowers repeat, but that gives the image more complexity.

Above: The completed puzzle. Click for closer view.

Puzzle Quality: 8/10

You can see our full brand comparison on Cobble Hill here.

The quality of this puzzle is good. As you can see in the detail close-up below, the puzzle is randomly cut with a large variety of piece shapes. The pieces aren’t as thick as some (Gibsons, Ravensburger), but are not so thin as to be annoying. The pieces interlock well and there’s no confusion about where a piece goes.

Just before putting together this 500 pieces puzzle, I did the 2000 piece “Rosemary’s Birds” by Cobble Hill, and I was surprised at how much larger the pieces in this 500 piece puzzle were! You can see below that some of the pieces in this puzzle are twice as big as a Ravensburer or Gibsons piece. A few pieces in the puzzle were smaller, as shown below, but I’d say ninety-percent with the over-sized ones. This wasn’t advertised as an “500 XL” puzzle, but it basically is. So for those who like the larger pieces, this one’s for you!  One nice thing about the large piece size is that the final puzzle is then a pretty good size, even though it’s only 500 pieces. (Final size is 18″ x 24″)

The Cobble Hill pieces have a nice linen finish, which eliminates glare. You can see the finish in the close-up below.

Assembly: 8/10

This is an easy puzzle to assemble. I did it in one evening. It’s easy to identify the colored birds, like the red cardinal below.

As well as the blue and yellow birds.

The garden gloves were also an easy pattern to pick out and piece together, along with the wooden table and straw hat.

The most difficult part of the puzzle was the pink and white flowers, because the pieces are spread out throughout the puzzle, but it was still an easy puzzle overall.

Summary

This lovely, spring-themed puzzle is easy to put together and has large, over-sized pieces. The bright colors of the birds and flowers, and the variety of patterns in still life objects, make for quick and fun assembly. The pink and white flowers add a wee bit more challenge. Cobble Hill is a quality brand with a random puzzle cut and attractive boxes. I would have liked to have seen more information about the artist and image on the box or included inside. Recommended.

Where to find:

You can grab this puzzle on sale for the next three days at Puzzle Warehouse.   REVIEW DISCOUNT: 15% off for 3 days (ends 5/29/2016).

Jane