Stave Puzzles - Company History

Company History

Steve Richardson moved from New Jersey to Vermont in 1969 and started a game design business with Dave Tibbetts. In 1974 he was offered $300 to make a wooden jigsaw puzzle. He accepted the job and bought a saw to teach himself how to do so. In the same year Steve and Dave the two formed Stave Puzzles, forming the name from a combination of their first names. In 1976 Richardson bought out Tibbetts's share of the company for $1 and a jigsaw. He built a small shop behind his garage and hired his first employee. In 1983, Stave introduced their first 2-Way Trick Puzzle, called Go Fish. In 1998 Stave was invited to show their puzzles at the White House.

In 1989, Stave Puzzles released an April Fools' Day joke puzzle called 5 Easy Pieces, which had no solution. The puzzles first thirty buyers were refunded their purchase price. In 1990 Stave Puzzles was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the most expensive jigsaw puzzle. In 1997, Stave introduced the Monkey Fist trick. In 1998, the Crazy Claws were introduced and in 2003 the first 3D Trick Puzzle, "Loop-de-Loop".

Owners of Stave Puzzles include Queen Elizabeth II, Barbara Bush, Stephen King, Julie Andrews, Tom Peters and Bill Gates.

Stave Puzzles is the largest hand-cut jigsaw puzzle company in the USA, and perhaps in the world, but faces growing competition from laser-cutting companies like Liberty Puzzles and Artifact Puzzles that produce similar (but generally judged to be lower-quality) products at roughly 1/10 the cost.