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our coverage "pieces", video clips, and press releases!
Handcrafting the World’s Finest Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles Since 1974
If you’re looking for the most ingenious, elegantly tricky, and beautifully handmade custom wooden jigsaw puzzles in the world… you have found them. Each wooden jigsaw puzzle is meticulously hand-cut, one piece at a time, by a skilled crafter. No computers, no high-tech (or lasers). One saw, one cutter — that's it. Using lots of imagination and a little bit of magic, we handcraft each wooden puzzle - piece by piece - so unique that each puzzle is an original work of art. There's no other puzzle in the world quite like a Stave and there's no other experience like solving one. The fun isn't just what's inside the box — it's everything about Stave.
In the News
Business management guru Tom Peters named Stave Puzzles "Product of the Year" in 1991, saying, "The folks at Stave Puzzles represent a class of unsung companies that do things right—deliver superior service, on time, in a way that satisfies and even delights customers." Here what some other notables have said about us:
Bloomberg
17 FEB 2020
10 High-End Jigsaw Puzzles to Give You a Much-Needed Break From Your Screens
23 MAR 2020
Les Echos
1 OCT 2020
The World's Best Jigsaw Puzzles
Pleasantly Tormented by a Puzzle with Steve Richardson
Meet the puzzle company that conjures ''sadomasochistic'' thrills for Bill and Melinda Gates.
Attaché
FEB 1998
WIRED Magazine
20 APR 2009
Smithsonian Magazine
MAY 1990
WCAX
23 May 2022
The Tim Ferriss Show
22 APRIL 2022
Piece by piece, this Vermont company built a pandemic-proof business in $1,000 jigsaw puzzles
22 SEPT 2020
Concord Monitor
18 FEB 2020
The One Item Bill Gates Almost Always Brings Along When Going On Vacation
Chronicle - Watch
10 JUL 2017
Departures Magazine
MAR/APR 2008
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
10 MAY 2020
In Vermont, Stave Puzzles created to confound
14 SEPT 2013
1991 Product of the Year
It's Time To Break Out The Toys!
$40,000 For Solving A Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle?
Robb Report
11 NOV 2006
USAir Magazine
MAY 1992
“It takes a certain type of person to put a maddeningly difficult puzzle together, and . . . It takes a particularly diabolical type of person to create one.”
Made in the Upper Valley: Stave Puzzles
Why Some People Pay $8,000 For This Guy’s Puzzles
09 JUN 2016
Forbes
27 FEB 2018
Cigar Aficionado
JUL 2010
Psychology Today
NOV 2013
Press Releases
Awards
2000 Guinness World Records names Stave Puzzles "Most Valuable Jigsaw Puzzle"
2003 Steve Richardson receives the first Spilsbury Award, at Association of Game and Puzzle Collector's 17th annual convention.
Stave Puzzles Fast Facts
Steve Richardson invented Trick™, Teaser™, Troublemaker™ and Treat™ puzzle types, and is known as the Chief Tormentor.
Due to the highly custom nature of Stave's jigsaw puzzles, they are not found in any store. Customers purchase directly from Stave.
Request fun shaped pieces, called silhouettes, in Stave Traditionals. Names, Dates, shapes of animals, objects, or people in action.
Founded by Steve Richardson and Dave Tibbetts in 1974, they combined their names to create an iconic brand (Steve + Dave = Stave).
Over 45 years of
puzzling torment!
After one year, Dave sold his portion of the business to Steve for $1 and a saw. They remain good friends to this day.
No lasers, no templates, or fancy gadgets are used to create Stave's wooden puzzles – just an artisan and a saw.
Champ, Stave's infamous Trick™ puzzle, has 32 possible solutions but only one is correct.
A Stave puzzle will never come with a photo of the puzzle image, that would make your job too easy!
The signature logo piece is included in every Stave puzzle crafted.
Stave is currently using fourteen saws to craft its puzzles.
Jennifer Lennox and Paula Tardie purchased Stave Puzzles in 2016 and continue Steve’s legacy of family fun with a little bit of torment.
Stave Puzzles
Media Kit
The Blue Box Experience