A few more Berrocal's

Sorry.  No exciting news as was promised. But, I actually have something puzzling to report this week.  It’s a miracle I tell you. 

As most of my dear readers probably know, I spend a great deal of time hunting down Berrocal puzzles and checking all of the auction sites on a daily basis.  Well last week I struck gold.  Or rather brass and iron.  I found a copy of Torso MFI.  This puzzle is a very simple Berrocal that consists of only 3 pieces, and one of those is a coin.  The puzzle was made in 1987 and was a run of only 200 pieces.  

I found it on an Italian resell site and placed the offer immediately. I picked it up for a song, and got a bit of driving practice in to get it.  As these pieces are heavy, it would have cost me 1/5th of what I paid to ship it to me and I was up for a drive so off we went.  It took about 5 hours to drive north of us to get this piece, but for me it was well worth it.

The piece was brasso'd shut and there was no opening it.  We tried WD40, but that didn't work, so we did the freezing trick. After 2 days in the freezer and a gentle tap, it opened up and we were able to see the coin inside. For heavens sake people!  Brasso has no business being anywhere near a puzzle! Don't ever use that!

Last week we also added a few more books on Berrocal to the library and I picked up another copy of Suite Veronese to be framed and added to the Berrocal wall in the castle.  We also managed to find a Many More Horses Coin which was made for the Society’s Equestris Hispalensis. 

The final Berrocal we picked up was an embossing entitled Algaidas.  It looks like our Berrocal room in the castle will be filling up nicely after all.  

We still do not much other than sit at home, shop for more puzzles, and play Eurorails.  We really have our hands tied and can really not do much until we return in April.  Our Italian lessons are plugging along and I’m really learning how to improvise in the kitchen with this little two burner thing I have here.  

The weather is turning colder, but the castle is surprisingly warm.  The heat won’t be turned on until the 5th of October as the current owner has a company come out and do it for him each year.  On in winter, off in summer.  Rest assured, this is something I will learn how to do.  

We have had some torrential rains, but have stayed nice and dry inside.  I keep walking around looking for leaks, but cannot find any.  And on that, my heart goes out to all of those in Ian’s wake.  Thankfully, the Puzzle Palace was far from the destructive winds of the hurricane and the packing goes on without us.  Our crew has almost finished packing the museum up.  Just short of one year from its grand opening.  I am NOT moving this collection again.  I’ve had enough and all I need to do is unpack.  

We had our first visitors come to the castle this past week.  Our friends Stu and Donna flew in for 24 hours to see what we are up to. They now understand.  Prior to their visit, like most of our friends, the thought we were mad.  We had a lovely hike up the mountain and just enjoyed spending a bit of time with them.

There really is not much to tell other than this.  Until next week, continua a rompicapo.