The best quality jigsaw puzzles - at the best prices!
The Puzzle Library
This is not a blog. It is a reference library about jigsaw puzzles, written for Australian puzzlers, and organised by what you are trying to find out rather than by whatever we happened to publish most recently.
Start here
If you read one thing, read the guide to piece counts. It is the decision that shapes every other choice you make about a puzzle.
The Complete Guide to Puzzle Piece Counts
What 500, 1000 and 2000 pieces really cost you in time and table space, why 636 exists, and the honest answer to whether more pieces means harder.
Cornerstone · 9 min read
The Complete Guide to Wasgij
The puzzle where the box image is never the picture you build. Every series ranked by difficulty, and whether to buy the Jumbo or the Holdson edition.
Cornerstone · 16 min read
The Complete Guide to Ravensburger Puzzles
The largest brand we carry and the benchmark for the rest. What Softclick means at the table, every series explained, and whether the premium is worth it.
Cornerstone · 13 min read
Puzzle Questions, Answered
Short, direct answers to the questions customers actually ask us, with the full guides behind each one.
Index · updated as questions come in
Brand Encyclopedia
One definitive page per brand: where it came from, what the puzzles are physically like, the formats nobody else does, and who it genuinely suits.
Ravensburger
A German publisher from 1883 that did not make a jigsaw until 1964, and is now the brand every other one gets measured against. What Softclick actually means.
13 min read
Wasgij
Jigsaw spelt backwards, and the box lies to you on purpose. Launched 1997 by Jumbo, drawn for fifteen years by Graham Thompson.
16 min read
Gibsons
A £500 loan in 1919, bombed out of the factory in 1940, still run by the founder's great-granddaughter. Recycled British board and the 636 piece panorama.
14 min read
Clementoni
An Italian education company that makes puzzles, founded in Recanati in 1963. Vivid printing, every collection explained, and where it sits against Ravensburger.
10 min read
Cobble Hill
The brand that threw away the grid. Why a 1000 piece Cobble Hill might hold 1007 pieces, and why every box contains a poster.
10 min read
HEYE
The triangular box. A Munich magazine publisher that signed the cartoonist Mordillo in 1972 and built an artist-led range unlike anything else.
9 min read
Eurographics
A Montreal poster distributor that became the fine-art puzzle brand. Van Gogh, Klimt and Hokusai, plus the maps nobody else does.
9 min read
Thames & Hudson
An art book publisher since 1949, founded on the idea of a museum without walls. Why the Dinner With series works so well.
9 min read
Choosing a puzzle
Before the picture, decide the commitment. These are the pages that stop you buying the wrong box.
Piece counts explained
Every count, what it costs in time and table space, and why piece count is not the same thing as difficulty.
9 min read
How long does a 1000 piece puzzle take?
Three to ten hours for most adults. Here is what actually moves that number.
5 min read
Ravensburger or Clementoni?
Two 1000 piece puzzles at different prices. What the extra money actually buys.
Buying guide
Building and finishing
Method, technique, and what to do with a puzzle once it is done.
How to glue a jigsaw puzzle
Thin coats, from the front, dried flat. Plus the two mistakes that ruin puzzles permanently.
5 min read
What does Wasgij mean?
Jigsaw spelt backwards, pronounced "Woz-gidge". Why the name is really an instruction manual.
3 min read
Puzzles and the mind
Why the thing works on us the way it does.
The psychology of puzzling
Why a jigsaw calms you down, and what is actually happening while you sort edges.
Research
The Premium Puzzles Index
Our own read on global puzzle demand, rebuilt daily from public data across retail, search and community platforms.
Original research
The shelf nobody else in this market can fill, because it is built from our own customers rather than from anybody's press release.
In build. We are collecting difficulty ratings and completion times from our own customers, puzzle by puzzle. When there is enough of it to stand behind, four things get published here: Australia's Favourite Puzzle Brands, The Hardest 1000-piece Puzzles, Which Brands Have the Fewest Missing Pieces, and Average Completion Times by Piece Count.
Until then, every claim we make about difficulty and timing on this site is labelled as experience and consensus rather than measurement, because that is what it is.
Artist Encyclopedia
Often the thing you are really shopping for. Nobody in Australia has written these properly.
Trevor Mitchell
The warm period scenes most people mean when they say a puzzle "looks like a Gibsons".
Planned
Mike Jupp
Dense, comic, dozens of small disasters at once. Behind the "I Love" range.
Planned
Graham Thompson
Drew Wasgij for fifteen years and more than fifty titles. Died 2020.
Planned
Colin Thompson & Aimee Stewart
The two Ravensburger artist ranges we stock most of.
Planned
Everything we actually have on the shelf
Shop puzzles
We only list what we physically hold, so nothing here is a back-order. Browse by piece count, brand or theme.
Why this exists
Most puzzle retailers, us included until now, publish a blog: a stack of posts in date order that nobody reads twice. That is the wrong shape for this. Almost every question a puzzler has is permanent, so the answer should be a page we keep improving rather than a post that slides down a feed.
So this library is ordered by usefulness, not by date, and every page carries the date we last reviewed it. If you find something out of date or plainly wrong, tell me and I will fix the page rather than write a new one.
Sources and further reading
- Premium Puzzles, Australia's Puzzle Institute. Shelf order is curated, not chronological.
Last reviewed and updated 30 July 2026 by Michael, Owner, Premium Puzzles. We keep this page current as the range and the market change, rather than letting it age as a dated post.
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