icon-star lock plus

Stave For The Press

Contact

Grab a seat at the puzzle table and get comfortable as you peruse
our coverage "pieces", video clips, and press releases!
 
Media and influencer inquiries, please contact:
Briana Paronto, Communications Coordinator
[email protected]
802-295-5200

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.

READ THE STAVE STORY

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:

"How a tiny manufacturer of wooden jigsaw puzzles created an addiction that high achievers just can’t kick"

Bloomberg
17 FEB 2020

10 High-End Jigsaw Puzzles to Give You a Much-Needed Break From Your Screens

23 MAR 2020

"The puzzle maker from Vermont, not far from the border with Canada, boasts of making the most difficult models in the world… but also the most expensive. The small company of 25 employees counts among its loyal fans Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos… and the Queen of England."

Les Echos
1 OCT 2020

The World's Best Jigsaw Puzzles

Forbes
10 MAY 2011

Pleasantly Tormented by a Puzzle with Steve Richardson

Meet the puzzle company that conjures ''sadomasochistic'' thrills for Bill and Melinda Gates.

Inc.
1 JUN 2002
"Does your life lack frustration? Join the likes of Bill Gates and Tom Peters and buy one of the toughest jigsaw puzzles ever made."
 

Attaché
FEB 1998

"Steve Richardson calls himself the Chief Tormentor of Stave Puzzles. He is, in fact, the president — and the designer of the company's fiercely difficult jigsaw puzzles."
 

WIRED Magazine
20 APR 2009

"The 'Rolls-Royce of puzzles' drives its fans round the bend"

Smithsonian Magazine
MAY 1990

"Inside the confines of one White River Junction building, sits a world of puzzling possibilities."

WCAX
23 May 2022

"There’s one of the chapters I go to, this crazy company in Vermont that makes hand-carved wooden puzzles..." – A.J. Jacobs

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

"There are jigsaw puzzle nights at coffee shops and libraries. Puzzle groups and puzzle games online. Hand-cut wooden puzzles that cost thousands of dollars."

Concord Monitor
18 FEB 2020

The One Item Bill Gates Almost Always Brings Along When Going On Vacation

22 FEB 2018

"At Stave Puzzles, they take great pride in their perplexing puzzles."

Chronicle - Watch
10 JUL 2017

How an entrepreneur's beguiling jigsaw creations won a cult following.
 

Departures Magazine
MAR/APR 2008

"The designers and woodcrafters at Stave Puzzles Inc. can be devious, often taking behind-the-scenes pleasure in driving their customers to distraction. Surprisingly, the customers would have it no other way."

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
10 MAY 2020

In Vermont, Stave Puzzles created to confound

14 SEPT 2013

“I have a unique relationship with my customers,” says Steve Richardson, president of Stave Puzzles in Norwich, Vermont. “They pay me to torture them.”

Reader's Digest
13 FEB 2017

1991 Product of the Year

It's Time To Break Out The Toys!

17 DEC 2018

$40,000 For Solving A Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle?

"Steve Richardson, a designer of wooden jigsaw puzzles, says he has a sadomasochistic relationship with his customers, who pay hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars to indulge in the tortures that he devises."

Robb Report
11 NOV 2006

"Once You Open This Box, There's No Turning Back ... "
 

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

Enterprise
22 JAN 2019

Why Some People Pay $8,000 For This Guy’s Puzzles

09 JUN 2016

"Not only are there costumes and clues involved, but guests will also have to solve Stave Puzzles (knowing for making some of the world’s most expensive puzzles) to figure out who committed the crime."

Forbes
27 FEB 2018

"The scene: a swanky London mansion. A gala party in full swing suddenly becomes a multiple crime scene, and the authorities swoop in. It’s up to you to help them crack each case and nab the perps."

Cigar Aficionado
JUL 2010

"Puzzle maker Steve Richardson is that rare inventor who succeeds by intentionally frustrating his best customers."

Psychology Today
NOV 2013

"We are so happy you exist! The world would not be the same without you. Stave makes the world a better place.
I'm sure everyone feels this way, so thank you."  – G.N., Morrisville, VT
READ CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS

Press Releases

May 28, 2021: Stave Puzzles Raises $3,300 for The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund

May 14, 2021: Stave Puzzles’ Virtual Auction to Benefit The Ellen Fund

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

REQUEST MEDIA KIT

The Blue Box Experience