Often when people report missing pieces, they figure out they aren't really missing. Here's the top things that happen:
#1 Reason: it's a piece we dropped-out on purpose, thinking we were clever and artistic, but sadly managed to confuse some customers into thinking they are missing a piece. Like for our Boobie-trapped puzzle:
#2 Reason: It's hiding in the box!
- "It was under the paper inside the box."
- "Just found 4 pieces in a crease in the tissue paper."
- "It was hiding with in the paper folds of the box. I found it on my 3rd search."
- "within an hour of emailing you for a replacement, that little scalawag of a piece crawled out of hiding... it had been lodged in a fold of tissue paper inside the original box!!! "
#3 Reason: It's camouflaged on the floor
- "We are good, the two pieces were hiding on the oriental rug but in plain sight to my grandson!"
- "No idea how I didn't see it before."
- "My husband stepped on it, luckily it's fine."
#4 Reason: It's hiding out with another puzzle!
- "My son had packed it away with his puzzle by accident!"
- "I found the piece on top of my completed Klimt puzzle."
- "It was hiding in the Degas ballerina puzzle box."
#5 Reason: Pieces fly to odd places!
- "I found it on the floor in the middle of a room 2 hallways and 2 rooms away from where I do puzzles"
- "Just found the 2 missing pieces in my knitting bag."
- "They were in the sleeve of my sweater"
- "Oddly they were in the fridge."
Can't find a piece?
Tip 1: Sometimes you have to stop looking before you can see. This is true for car keys and love as well, and in general "go do something else and give your brain a break" is a well-known tenet of problem-solving.
Tip 2: Ask someone else to see if they see it!
- "My wife found it somewhere. I have no idea where it was. The puzzle is now complete. "
Tip 3: Email us at artifactpuzzles@gmail.com with a photo showing where you are missing the piece. If it's hiding, knowing you have given up on finding it might coax it out!
If you got a replacement piece from us for a missing piece, and later found the piece, we'd love to know at artifactpuzzles@gmail.com for our quality statistics, and we'd be curious to hear where you finally found it!
Just found the missing piece underneath the puzzle while breaking it down. It managed to slip under the rest of the puzzle somehow!
I had done the puzzle before my mother-in-law, It was complete when I did it, and I assumed that my toddler daughter had stolen it and run away with it or something.
When I saw the piece though I knew immediately that it was the missing one, and luckily I hadn’t taken apart that part of the puzzle yet!
During a really hot summer day, a piece clang to my sweaty arm. I could not find it because it stayed glued to me (unbeknown to me, of course!). It finally dropped between the pages of a magazine I was reading later on. It’s only when I saw another piece glued to me that I could make a connection and go on a detective search.
A car whimsy piece I hadn’t even realized was missing yet turned up in the pocket of the little neighbor boy. Thankfully his mother recognized it and sent his sister back over with it!
Ha! This just happened to me. Opened up the shipping box to flatten it for recycle and there was the missing piece! just after being surprised and delighted that I could actually replace it. Y’all are great
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 This is hilarious! “Oddly they were in the fridge” makes perfect sense; puzzling is hard work and who doesn’t need a snack?