This was the most frustrating puzzle experience I have ever had. I do 50-60 puzzles per year and 1,000 piece is usually my favorite format. Eric creates beautiful works of art but I do remember why I crossed Dowdle off my list a number of years ago. The 1,000 piece format! I discovered and have enjoyed a number of your 500 piece format puzzles just recently. I guess I now know why you carry over 300 puzzles in the 500 piece format and only about 100 in the 1,000 piece format.
Specifically, it took me all night to just assemble the frame or straight edges. So many pieces were exactly the same shape and fit in multiple places. The whole puzzle was this way! I had to do the sky of this puzzle to finish the frame and it was still very difficult. I guess I will look elsewhere for my 1,000 piece puzzles. Your pieces are also smaller than my favorite puzzle companies Ravensburger and White Mountain. These companies both produce beautiful images on quality puzzle board stock. Dowdle does this as well! I believe this is the key to bringing Dowdle up to their quality level in the 1,000 piece format. Both these companies have larger pieces than Dowdle. White Mountain's claim to fame is the largest puzzle pieces for the 1,000 piece format in the industry. Ravensburger's claim to fame is that every piece is unique. No two pieces are alike! This means no frustration with pieces that fit in multiple locations.
I hope this review is helpful and I also hope I one day hear that Dowdle has improved their 1,000 piece product. Thanks for listening.
