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The most helpful favorable review
The most helpful critical review
68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
great puzzle
I'm not a big fan of jigsaw puzzles (sure, they are fun, but I can think of more fun things to do with my time), but when I saw this thing in its assembled form at barnes and noble, something about it made me do a double take. It just looked so cool and unusual -- a professional-looking globe made out of jigsaw pieces with no internal support! How can it be so smooth? How...
Published on August 21, 2008 by R. Belikov
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Difficult or impossible to assemble neatly
I have purchased two sets of this puzzle globe. I consider myself to have above average skills in modeling and crafts, and I've been assembling puzzles and models for over 40 years. I found it impossible to assemble this puzzle neatly, without flaws. I realized, soon after inspecting the first set I bought, that it would never assemble properly without glue. In certain...
Published 14 months ago by James Frick
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68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
great puzzle, August 21, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
I'm not a big fan of jigsaw puzzles (sure, they are fun, but I can think of more fun things to do with my time), but when I saw this thing in its assembled form at barnes and noble, something about it made me do a double take. It just looked so cool and unusual -- a professional-looking globe made out of jigsaw pieces with no internal support! How can it be so smooth? How can it stay solid? I hadn't even noticed that it wasn't a solid globe at first, when casually catching it out of the corner of my eye a few times as I was browsing the book stalls. It seemed like a lot of fun to make something like this, as was the prospect of testing my geography. My wife didn't see it as all *that* cool, but we still had a blast assembling this thing, though she only did the US, canada, and antarctica and only had patience for 30-60 minutes at a time. Trying to figure out which part of the world a given piece belonged to based only on parts of city names was a lot of fun. Watching it grow was great. Highly addictive, causes sleep loss. Took 3 days, maybe 4 hours a day. I would say the difficulty level is appropriate for adults and kids over ~12, or under 12 if accompanied by adults (unless it's assembled in cheat-mode where you look at the numbers on the backs of pieces). The pieces are hard and plastic, and interlock pretty tightly. It holds together pretty well during assembly, and is sturdy when fully assembled -- you can roll it around like a soccer ball (just don't kick it) and it can spin in the base very fast without breaking. It didn't seem quite as smooth as in the store -- some pieces jotted out by a fraction of a mm, but it does look perfectly smooth from a distance. My only qualm is that the printing on some adjacent pieces was slightly misaligned (< 1mm) and that some ocean pieces are completely identical, so that the only way to distinguish them is by the numbers in the back. But it's actually perfectly useable as a regular, fairly detailed globe and especially as a cool decoration! I'll probably eventually get some of their other ones, such as the globe of the night sky.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent product!!, January 17, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
My 9-year old daughter and I have had a wonderful experience with this puzzle. She started out using the numbers on the back of the pieces, but I convinced her to use her regular puzzle skills to assemble the globe. We've both learned a thing or two about geography! I chose the Ravensburger brand because of its quality and durability; I wasn't disappointed. I definitely recommend this product to others.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Old Guy's toy, August 27, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
We love maps and globes. Our family room is full of them. This is just the latest addition to the decor. It was fun to put together. I'm not sure how kid friendly it is but it is really old guy friendly.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
It's a great puzzle!, November 26, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
It's a lot of fun to put together and definitely teaches geography. It's challenging too, especially in expanses of open ocean but fortunately all the pieces are numbered. It's only drawback is that it's not really a "group" puzzle. Because of it's design you basically start in Antarctica and work your way to the North Pole, pretty much holding it in your hand as you go. Because of the curve of the pieces it's difficult to put together large "sub-assemblies" of areas like you might with a traditional flat puzzle. Nor could one person (or group) start with the South Pole and the other person start with the North Pole, meeting at the Equator. It's also a little fragile. It won't fall apart in normal use but will not stand up to impact or rough handling.
All in all it's a challenging puzzle, looks great completed, and I would highly recommend it! Suitable for kids 7 and up with adult supervision and kids 10 and up alone.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Innovative and fun, November 2, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
I was thinking about getting a globe as a gift for school age children and came across this puzzle globe. It is a current, working globe with the added bonus of being able to visualize each country as it is put together. The puzzle format is easy to use (the pieces are numbered on the back), but still a little challenging. It is also hard and durable, and can withstand pressure and falling (not a hard fall, I don't think). It would be nice to have some sort of back lighting for night use, but craft aficionados will find a way to remedy that. After I gave one away as a gift, I recommended it to a friend of mine as a gift for an 8 year old puzzle lover. It was his favorite gift ever and he finished it before the night was over!
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Difficult or impossible to assemble neatly, July 11, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
I have purchased two sets of this puzzle globe. I consider myself to have above average skills in modeling and crafts, and I've been assembling puzzles and models for over 40 years. I found it impossible to assemble this puzzle neatly, without flaws. I realized, soon after inspecting the first set I bought, that it would never assemble properly without glue. In certain areas of the puzzle the pieces simply don't fit together properly, without creating distorting stresses in the ball. Some pieces require forcing or trimming to go together at all.
I was not satisfied with the first resulting globe so I decided to get another one and try again. It hasn't gone much better. I assembled the puzzle to the midpoint, the equator, and began to have serious difficulties.
The photo of the completed puzzle on the box can't be an actual, assembled Earth globe puzzle, not one of the mass produced ones, anyway. It is quite deceptive.
If you want a jigsaw puzzle, I recommend one that's made of two dimensional panels, or a smaller size spherical puzzle. This one was quite frustrating.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Fun and well-engineered, February 25, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
We saw this at a friend's and were so intrigued that we had to get one to "play with".
It is surely a conversation piece and at 9" in dia.it can be put almost any place.
The things which were most impressive were:
1. Very well packaged.
2. Clear directions and assembly guides.
3. Sturdy semi-curved thick plastic pieces.
4. Inspected thoroughly, no missing parts.
5. Numbered pieces.
6. Great stand and assembly "platform.
7. Good fit, although the "plastic flash" on
a couple of pieces needed to be smoothed out
but not a big deal.
8. Ordered on Friday and received on Tuesday.
9. And...it's fun.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
For older children only!, August 27, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
I got this for my 8 year old who loves puzzles and wanted a globe. I never intended for her to put it together by herself. It was meant to be a "father/daughter" project and its a good thing-definitely not made for a smaller child. Although it has numbers on back for those who need the extra help (or just want to cheat) it required three of us to get the puzzle into the ball formation. Once its together, its together-very sturdy and secure but getting it there requires a bit of patience. I would suggest an age range of atleast 10 and up. It is not a quick project either and we found it entertaining to do it after dinner each night or on a Sunday afternoon. As for the father/daughter time-it was priceless!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A Lasting Puzzle to Display, April 8, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
I must admit, we tried to put this together the 'challenging way', by matching the pieces the way you would a normal jigsaw puzzle. We got Antarctica done this way, but quickly reverted to 'cheater mode' and matched the numbers. It was still fun! Visitors do a double-take when they see it displayed on our shelf. This is a great, well-made puzzle that is great for the long Winter weeks.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Very nice puzzleball with educational value, February 18, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball (Toy)
This puzzle ball is a lot of fun and you can actually make it easy or hard on yourself assembling the ball depending on presorting the numbers that are printed on the back of the puzzle pieces. The pieces are very sturdy and fairly easy to put together. Even though not all of the images on the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly (lines or words don't line up), it is still a very nice and educational puzzle. After putting it together I wanted to take it apart and do it all over again. It looks nice sitting anywhere and works very well just using it as a globe while not being too big or taking up too much space. Very high quality.
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