Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball | 
| Brand: Ravensburger
Category: Toy
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $27.29
as of 7/31/2010 10:24 CDT details
You Save: $17.70 (39%)
New (43) Collectible (3) from $22.98
Seller: Best Service Stores
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 1729
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 10 - 99 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 3.3 x 10.3 x 10.4
MPN: 11118
Model: 11118
EAN: 4005556111183
ASIN: B000UEL05U
Release Date: July 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
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| Features:
| • | Features perfectly crafted, curved puzzle-pieces | | • | Can be easily assembled together to form a solid, smooth ball | | • | No glue required | | • | Includes both a plastic base stand and metal rotation stand | | • | 540 piece set |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The latest and greatest innovation from Ravensburger, this unique three-dimensional puzzle inspires a world of wonder among both kids and adults. It's specially crafted from sturdy, curved plastic pieces that fit securely in place to form a round, smooth ball. Once completed, proudly display it anywhere using the included sturdy metal V-shaped stand. No glue required. 540 pieces. Measures 8.5" diameter.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
 great puzzle August 21, 2008
R. Belikov
67 out of 67 found this review helpful
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.
Excellent product!! January 18, 2008
Debra Damato (Bayside, NY)
31 out of 31 found this review helpful
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.
It's a great puzzle! November 26, 2008
M. Kaiser (New Jersey, USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
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.
Innovative and fun November 2, 2008
P. Sclafani (New York, NY)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
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!
Fun and well-engineered February 25, 2009
Robert B. Medendorp (White Cloud, Mi.)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
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