THE WORLD OF MECHANICAL PUZZLES
Brain teasers, puzzle solutions and mechanical puzzles
Wooden brain teasers, ingenious puzzle boxes, tricky metal puzzles and centuries of puzzle history — all waiting to be explored.
DISCOVER SOMETHING INGENIOUS
What would you like to explore?
Puzzle Solutions
Step-by-step hints and preserved guides.
Puzzle Finder
Identify puzzles and find matching solutions.
Puzzle Games
Play online games and explore challenges.
Puzzle History
Explore centuries of mechanical puzzles.
Photo Identifier
Identify a puzzle using a photograph.
Shop Puzzles
Find puzzles from independent retailers.
Popular starting points
Featured Puzzle Solutions
FOLLOW THE STORY
A Rich History of Puzzles
Explore how simple ideas became worldwide phenomena — from ancient dissections and eighteenth-century jigsaws to the 15 Puzzle and Rubik’s Cube.
AntiquityStomachion & geometric dissections
1760sDissected maps become early jigsaws
1880The 15 Puzzle craze
1974–1980The Magic Cube goes global
About this website
From online shop to verified archive
Crafty Puzzles began trading in 2004 and specialised in unusual wooden, metal and three-dimensional puzzles. Product sales have ended. The rebuilt website preserves established page addresses, original instruction material and product photographs while adding modern accessibility, search and print features.
Every solution now includes source and verification information. Where a written guide has been added, it is an original summary designed to accompany rather than replace the surviving diagram or video.
SOMETHING TO PLAY
Puzzle Games
Take a break from the instruction sheets. Try a challenge, practise your strategy and keep your brain curious.
Explore Puzzle Games →
Find another challenge
Looking for a puzzle to buy?
Browse retailer searches matched to the same puzzle families used throughout the archive.
The shop uses clearly labelled Amazon UK and eBay affiliate links.
PRESERVING PUZZLE KNOWLEDGE
Puzzles bring curious minds together.
Have an old instruction sheet, unusual puzzle or piece of information? Help make this free reference library more useful for the next person trying to solve it.