If a piece falls off the side of the boat, or your pet gets its paws on one, we can craft a replacement piece for you. Sometimes your missing piece is not missing at all. Here's some things you should do before sending your puzzle back to Stave.

Because we LOVE to torture you! Your Stave Traditional puzzle may have additional pieces. These pieces add another layer of trickery, torment, and challenge to your puzzle. You will find that one piece blends in with the image, while the other piece will state "Sometimes I Just Don't Fit In" - these pieces will connect.

Each puzzle is meticulously hand-cut using delicately fine blades, one piece at a time, by a skilled artisan. No computers, no high-tech. One saw, one crafter—that's it. The cherry back is gently sanded and polished by hand to a soft gleam. Only those puzzles that meet our rigid quality standards actually leave our shop.

There are two types of personalization: Pieces crafted in (called silhouettes) and hand-written personalization

Silhouettes - You can request your choice of names, initials, dates or special shapes. Silhouettes can reflect your hobbies, pets, sports, family members, trips, or special events. This type of personalization is available in Traditional puzzles.

Hand-written personalization - Sometimes simple and imaginative changes can be made to a puzzle image to make it personal. Have family names hand-written on shop signs, flags, or banners. We can even write a short message on some puzzles. Learn more about personalization.

Traditional puzzles have room for names, dates, and silhouette shapes to be crafted into them. Other puzzles have signs, flags, or banners where we can hand-letter a name or short message. Tricks and Teasers, for instance, are designed to be challenging for their size, but leaving no room for personalization. We can, however, put the puzzler's name on the box, hand-lettered in gold.

That depends on what type of puzzler you are. Our 5-bolt Trick puzzles are for the true masochist. We consider them to be part of the Stave Torture Chamber! We won't even sell you one of these babies until you’ve earned your stripes with a Trick puzzle having a lower difficulty rating. That being said, you could get hours of puzzlement and hair-pulling challenge from a large Traditional puzzle as well.

Click here to learn about the different puzzle genres and the unique challenge each has to offer.

Stave puzzles are proudly crafted one-piece-at-a-time in our puzzle shop nestled in the heart of the Green Mountains in Norwich, Vermont, United States (which is just across the river from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire).

Stave Puzzles offers three different puzzle piece sizes for all of our Traditional puzzles! You can make your piece size selection when personalizing your puzzle image. Stave Design puzzles (Tricks, Teasers, etc.) are only available in Standard. Stave also offers wooden jigsaw puzzles with guestbook-sized pieces – the pieces are large enough for wedding or party guests to sign the back of the puzzle piece. Learn more about Guestbook puzzles here.

Stave puzzles are handcrafted using a quarter inch, five-layer, cherry-backed wood. To ensure highest quality, we have this wood custom-made for all our puzzles.

The Stave Puzzles experience is one that is designed to challenge, stump, and befuddle you. While we encourage family togetherness, our puzzles are recommended for adults.

There are two reasons: One, so we can pay homage to the puzzle crafters who came before us and, two, it gives us one more way to torment and tease you - the Stave experience!

Your puzzle will be packed in our signature blue box or a handmade wooden box (can be purchased separately). In our blue boxes, you will find the special shaped whimsy pieces (called silhouettes) in the bottom of the box. A green piece of tissue seperates the silhouettes from other handcrafted pieces.

Before we ship the puzzle, it is gift wrapped if requested (at no additional fee) and then wrapped in white tissue paper to preserve the gift wrapping and secure the puzzle box for shipment.

Every Stave puzzle will include our signature clown logo piece. You will find that the wood side of the clown indicates the month and year it was crafted and the initials of the artisan that handcrafted your woden jigsaw puzzle - all hand-lettered in gold ink.

You can identify your crafter's initials, by visiting the Tormentors page.