Puzzle Factory

I’m not sure what I expected when I walked into Liberty Puzzles in Boulder. I have been buying puzzles from them for years. Lovely, real wood puzzles cut by laser with each piece unique + dozens of whimsy pieces in each puzzle. No, they are not cheap, but I believe the value for the money is there.

I left Colorado Springs this morning after spending an enjoyable week with Kathy, seeing some of the local sites but mostly relaxing and getting caught up on a number of projects. With a flight tonight I needed to fill the day. Why not Boulder? The drive just isn’t that far. Jane & Don’s whose car I will be returning in a couple of hours live near the airport and certainly on the right side of the city to go to Boulder.

Where was I?

Oh, walking into Liberty Puzzles after finding it on 49th very close to C 157.  This is not a paid advertisement, but a report of a place with a great product and even better customer service.

see those old puzzles on the wall?

There is part of the owner’s collection of hand cut wooden puzzles passed down in his family.  There are displays of the current puzzle lines –

As well as a table with several set out just to temp me into spending more time.

The kind Collette gave me a tour of the manufacturing process which takes about 3 days total per puzzle.

The picture for each puzzle is printed on archival quality acid free paper

Then applied to the wooden piece so that it seals and drys (which starts the explanation of the amount of time involved. From here – the puzzles are individually cut in the production room. Think more than a dozen individual closed machines each computer controlled and capable of burning a puzzle in about 45 minutes. (and no pictures in this room).  This is followed by cooling….

From there –

each puzzle is then taken apart piece by piece

with each being checked and rough edges sanded or filed as needed. Then comes hand packing in boxes. Followed by my gleeful shopping in the inventory racks!

I stuck with the adult puzzles

and stayed away from both the small round and the kids puzzles. It really helped me to look at the boxes to give me a much better idea if I really needed that puzzle. I did find a couple by one artist and then there is the Dr Seuss line. Shipping, as it turns out is much, much cheaper than Boulder sales tax (9%).

I also found enough puzzles to extend my puzzle membership for another year which makes me a happy camper but not sure how it is going to affect our bookshelves… It is probably extremely good for my pocket book that I won’t be back this way anytime soon. My flight is rather late this evening from Denver direct back to Oakland.

Now, I was going to ask if I really wanted to get up for an 0715 exercise class in the morning before realizing that I at least exhibited enough common sense to sign up for the 0945 session instead. Followed by an A’s game. Then I need to pack up my current puzzle in anticipation of some new ones arriving in the mail!