We have a real sweet spot for mini puzzles and have somewhat accidentally accumulated quite a large collection. 96 to be exact.

A mini puzzle is the best for when you’re feeling the puzzle itch but don’t necessarily have the time or space to work on a full size puzz. A puzzle snack as we like to say. But that got us thinking, what constitutes a mini puzzle? What is the piece-count cut off? We looked into it for a definitive answer but found nothing. Left with no choice we decided the cut off point is around 90 pieces. Once you hit 100 it just doesn’t really feel mini anymore.

Here are some highlights from the collection!

Springbok Appeteasers

We treasure our Springbok Appeteaser collection and are lucky enough to have the complete collection of 12. Made in 1973 this gorgeous little set of photographic puzzles features one item of food per puzz. The packaging is a particular highlight of this generation of Springbok mini puzzles. The round box is impossibly adorable and the 65 piece puzzle inside is the perfect size and difficulty. The back of each box has a cheeky little poem or copy about the food on the front. Puzzle was at peak silly in the 70s and these are the perfect examples of that.

Round Misc.

Being such big fans of this particular Springbok mini puzzle packaging we couldn’t help but collect other puzzles from various series’ of that time. We have a few from the Flirtations, Naturescapes, Enchantment, Flirtations and the Psychedelic Mother Goose series. They also all include a funny little bit of copy on the back. Something interesting to note is that not all of these puzzles have the same die-line. There are a few different cuts in rotation at this time so that each puzzle wasn’t the same.

Nob Food Puzzles

This is a relatively new obsession for us but let’s just say we fell hard for these Japanese Nob-man puzzles. This is a series of 3D food shaped puzzles was designed by genius puzzle maker Nob Yoshigahara and manufactured by both Toyo Glass and Beverly. They were all designed and manufactured in the 80s and a few are still in production today. The difficulty level ranges in scale but most of them are insanely hard and require the use of a cheat code that you have to request in email form from a blog. The code you get is another puzzle in and of itself. It’s gorgeous but hard to understand. The whole cheat system is so silly and incredible. We were able to acquire most of these from Japanese resale sites, but there are still so many we’re dying to get our hands on.

• Whiskey on the Rocks, 1989, 7 pieces — Toyo Glass
• A-MAIZ-ING, 1980s, 14 pieces — Toyo Glass
• Peanuts, 1980s, 10 pieces — Toyo Glass
• Pack The Broad Beans, 1980s, 9 pieces — Toyo Glass
• Pudding, 1980s, 12 pieces — Beverly

Egg Puzzles

This is an incredible set of egg themed mini puzzles we found on eBay. It was made by a company called Hammoco Designs Ltd. from London and was made in 1980. It features 6 mini puzzles each inside of an oversized plastic egg shell. Each puzzle is of a different typical English breakfast and each die-line is unique to the specific puzzle. The fact that the whole thing comes in this oversized egg carton is truly the cherry on top! There is very limited information about this series of puzzles online but we cherish them so much and feel very lucky to have found them by searching “vintage puzzle 1980’ on eBay.