Thirteen Puzzle Companies Ranked by Overall Quality

I have added a formal review of Buffalo puzzles to the "Company Reviews" page and revised (as a result of more exposure to their puzzles) the numeric totals of a couple of others. I have broken point-ties strictly by a gut feel for which for which company's product I would likely reach for first.

That said, I do use a point-system to rank the companies, and there is still surprisingly little difference along that 35-point scale in many cases. It seems that most companies are strong in some qualities and just average or even weak in others, so the overall ranking can boil down to only one or two category "misses" on the parts of the companies. Some companies produce too many damaged pieces, some produce poor colors, or too loose a fit, etc., but whatever it is, they almost all have one or two weak areas.

I rate eight separate categories from 1-4 points each, and offer up to three possible bonus points for exceptional quality in any of the rating-categories. That means that a perfect score would be 35 points (and no company has approached that number yet). This thirteen-company ranking is based on total points (with the percentage of a perfect score also shown strictly for informational purposes}. 

More reviews and list adjustments will follow as I gain more experience with the puzzles of other companies.

Puzzle Company Ranking List:

1. White Mountain -   29 points, 83%
2. Aquarius -   28 points, 80%
3. The Jigsaw Puzzle Factory - 28 points, 80%
4. Ravensburger - 28 points, 80%
5. Cobble Hill - 27 points, 77%
6. Buffalo - 26 points, 74%
7. SunsOut -   26 points, 74%
8. Dowdle Folk Art -   26 points, 74%
9. Hogan's Harbor - 25 points, 71%
10. Eurographics - 24 points, 69%
11. Ceaco -  23 points, 66%
12. Hasbro - 23 points, 66%
13. Puzz3D (MB) - 15 points, 43%

Detailed Reviews for Each Company Ranked - Click Here


I invite your comments and/or mini-reviews on any of the puzzle companies I've ranked to this point. Just attach your thoughts below in the comments section and I will copy them to my review of the same company. Your words will appear here in the original post AND as an attachment to my review. 

Thoughts, folks?

"Nice" by Hasbro

"Nice," Hasbro, 300 Easy Grasp pieces, 18 x 24 inches

Like so many puzzlers, I often work a "change of pace" puzzle after two or three difficult or large piece-count puzzles. It always seems to give me the jump-start I need to get back to the more difficult puzzles, and "Nice" was no exception. This is a puzzle that I picked up for next to nothing at a local thrift shop, and I failed to notice when I bought it that the puzzle pieces were what Hasbro calls "Easy Grasp" size. That means that I ended up with a relatively large finished puzzle of 18 by 24 inches, all built from only 300 pieces.

I began to get an idea of just how quickly this one was going to come together when I pulled all the "frame" pieces from the box on the first pass. Of course, that probably only happened because the frame itself has a uniform yellow border all the way around it,  because of all the puzzles I've ever worked, this is the first time I haven't had to go back into the box for a second or third pass at the border pieces. From there, the blue pieces really stood out from the rest, so that seemed like the logical place to go to next.

Simply completing the blue sky and and the rest of the horizon meant that about 40% of the puzzle was done, so it was on to the main figure in the image, along with all the supporting characters, and the cars. This would prove to be the slowest part of the puzzle, but would not really be any great challenge either. Instead, the fun from working "Nice" comes from its good variety in puzzle-piece shapes, something that Hasbro does a  very good job on. Even that, though, doesn't add a tremendous amount of difficulty to a puzzle with pieces this large, but it certainly helped to hold my interest.

"Nice" may not be much of a challenge for experienced puzzlers (it took me only a couple of hours, all told, and I'm not tremendously experienced), but the finished product is really quite an eye-catcher. And it did it's job...I'm ready for a new challenge now.