Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How much is shipping in the US?
You get 2 options at check-out:
Free Shipping (for all US addresses) typically uses USPS Retail Ground or UPS Ground service or better, and usually arrives in 3-10 days after you order.
Priority shipping uses either USPS Priority shipping, or UPS 3-day, or UPS 2nd Day Air, at our discretion. The cost is:
- $8 for orders up to $50 (1 small puzzle)
- $12 for orders $50-$70 (1 medium puzzle)
- $15 for orders $70 to $300 (1 big puzzle)
- $20 for orders $300 to $600
- $25 for orders over $600
- 1-3 days if you are on the West Coast
- 2-4 days if you are MidWest-ish
- 3-5 days if you are on the East Coast
Q: Do you ship internationally?
Yes. For orders to these countries you can ship on our website and it will charge you one flat shipping fee for your entire order:
- Canada: flat $30 USD shipping fee (any size order)
- Western Europe: flat $40 USD shipping fee (any size order)
- Australia/NZ/Japan/Taiwan/Malaysia/Singapore: flat $50 USD shipping fee (any size order)
For other countries, please email us at artifactpuzzles@gmail.com to see if we can arrange delivery to you.
International shipments usually take 10-20 days. We ship USPS Economy International to all countries except Australia, for which we use UPS.
Your government may charge additional import duties and taxes that we cannot control.
- Orders are processed as quickly as possible after they are placed, usually within two business days. Unforeseeable circumstances, such as hurricanes, may lead to delays, both in order processing and shipment.
Q: Gift Options: Can you guys gift-wrap for me? Can I include a gift message? How do I tell you not to put an invoice in the box?
There is never an invoice in the box so you don't have to select anything to get no-invoice.
To get gift wrap, add our gift wrap product to your order once, and we will gift wrap all the puzzles in your order for the flat fee.
To say who it's from, add our gift wrap product and we'll tag the gift-wrapped puzzle with From X, where X is the name on the billing address for your order. We cannot guarantee custom gift messages, but you can email your custom gift message to us at people@artifactpuzzles.com and we'll do our best to get it on the gift.
Q: Do you guys sell gift cards?
Yes! You can buy digital gift cards in any amount $10 and up. Gift cards are delivered by email and contain instructions to redeem them at checkout. Our gift cards have no additional processing fees, and have no expiration date.
Q: What is the difference between the Ecru puzzle line and your standard Artifact Puzzles?
Our Ecru puzzles are our "luxury line":
- Ecru puzzles have matte images, so less glare, but less bright
- Ecru puzzle pieces are cut closer together, for a more beautiful final image, but harder to see whimsies once they are in the puzzle
- Ecru puzzles are more expensive because they are harder to make.
Q: We're missing a piece or a piece is broken - can you help?
Usually yes! If you are missing a piece the first time you do a puzzle, we will be happy to replace it for free.
If you've had the puzzle for a while, or know it's your fault (dog-chewed piece?), we have to ask you to pay $15 to cover the costs of re-making the piece and shipping it to you - just buy our piece replacement here, then send us an email with the photo and address.
Email us (at people@artifactpuzzles.com) a photo of the completed puzzle so we can see which piece is missing. We'll try to re-create the piece for you as best we can, and send it to you at any US address. Usually takes 5-14 days to get to you, and usually you can't tell it's a replacement piece unless you look really close.
Q: Can I cancel my order?
Yes if your order isn't already shipped-out. Email us at people@artifactpuzzles.com, please give us the order number! If your order is already shipped-out, you can still return un-opened puzzles (see below).
Q: Can I change the shipping address on an order I already placed?
Yes if your order isn't already shipped-out. Email us at people@artifactpuzzles.com.
Q: Can I return my order?
We are happy to accept returns of un-opened puzzles, at any point in time. Email us to let us know, and we'll give you the address to ship it back. (We can't pay for shipping unless we made some kind of error, but we'll refund or replace the full puzzle.)
If you need to return a puzzle you've already opened, contact us and we'll figure out how we can help on a case-by-case basis.
Q: How do I remove something from my wish list?
When you first open your wish list page, you will see all of the puzzles lined up. In the top right corner of each puzzle there is an X. Click that and it should remove it from your wish list!
Q: Can I share my wish list?
Yes! At the top of your wish list page, there are three dots on the right hand side. Under that, there is an option to share. Follow the directions from there!
Q: Where are your puzzles made?
Our puzzles are made in charming Port Townsend, Washington ("a Victorian Seaport" a couple hour ferry ride from Seattle) and previously before 2022 in Fremont, California (part of "Silicon Valley", which is about 45 minutes southeast of San Francisco if the traffic is light, which it never is). From 2013-2019, our puzzles were made in Menlo Park, California (also in "Silicon Valley"). Before October 2013, all our puzzles were made in Seattle, Washington.
Please note there is a Chinese company that also makes wood puzzles and sells them with our brand name, we try to keep these "fakes" off Amazon, but you'll often see them on Ebay or Mercari super-cheap. Their boxes look quite different from ours, and their images are generally the super-colorful-patterned shaped animal puzzles that have been swamping the market from China and Russia the last couple years. To be safe, buy our puzzles from this website or in these stores.
Q: The puzzle I want says it's SOLD OUT, when will it be back in stock?
If a puzzle says SOLD OUT, it will be back in-stock eventually, but it could be many moons.
Sign up to get an email when the puzzle you want comes back in stock (just go to the puzzle's page and a pop-up window should take your email address). We prioritize making puzzles a lot of people have signed-up for, so signing-up matters!
Some puzzles marked "sold out" are actually still in the design-phase, the way to tell is look if it's on our Coming Soon page, if yes, it could be many months before we actually get it in stock.
If you really badly want a particular puzzle back in stock soon or need it by a particular date, please email us at people@artifactpuzzles.com and we'll see what we can do.
Q: What ages do you recommend your puzzles for?
We recommend our puzzles for adults and teens who are 15 years or older.
Be warned that puzzle pieces are a choking hazard. And keep puzzle pieces away from dogs who enjoy chewing on them! Also, some of our puzzles have some sharp points.
Some of our puzzle images have cartoon nudity, fine art nudity, skeletons, cartoon violence, fine art violence, or characters smoking, and these depictions may not be welcome or appropriate for all puzzlers. If we know an image has any such content, we warn you in the product description for that puzzle, and try to show zoomed-in photos of that imagery. Please use your own judgment regarding each image and puzzler if you are gifting.
Q: What kind of wood do you use?
We use plywood for strength and flexibility. Our plywood is a formaldehyde-free maple plywood (USA, FSC-certified). (Technical notes: "formaldehyde-free plywood means there is no formaldehyde in the glue, and is a new technology that you won't find in a normal hardwood store; however, natural wood does have a small amount of naturally-occuring formaldehyde in it that no one knows how to remove.)
Q: How thick is the wood you use?
We use American 1/4" plywood. Note American plywood is described as 1/4" thick but it is really more like 7/32" thick, it's a wood industry quirk.
Q: What's a "whimsy piece"?
Pieces that are specially shaped are called whimsy pieces. Many of our puzzles contain "figurative whimsy pieces" that are recognizable as something; for example, the Tyukanov Moon Puzzle has pieces shaped like a Boeing 747, an astronaut, a kite, a waterplane, a hawk, etc. Some of our puzzles instead only have special decorative pieces, like Renoir Oarsmen or the Dennis Brady. We also offer extra-hard puzzles without any whimsy or special pieces, and where the connectors are the same so that you really have to pay attention to the image such as our Hokusai Dragon, Bundi Miniature, Deccan Miniature, and Ong Khan puzzles.
Q: What are Mystery Puzzles? Can I buy them with the label on the box?
Our Mystery Puzzles are meant to provide an extra fun challenge by not telling you what the image is. You can read all about them on our Mystery Puzzles page.
Q: Would you make a custom puzzle for me?
Generally we don't do custom puzzles. Only if you're interested in ordering at least 250 puzzles. Email people@artifactpuzzles.com for pricing. If you are a museum/gallery/artist interested in working with us to design a puzzle using a particular art piece or artist, feel free to pitch us your idea at people@artifactpuzzles.com.
Q: How do I contact you guys?
Email us at people@artifactpuzzles.com (or artifactpuzzles@gmail.com, both email addresses are received the same). Our median response time is 4 hours. We do all customer service via email.