Whenever you start working on something, you have to go about it with the underlying assumption that this puzzle has a solution, right? If you started a jigsaw puzzle not knowing whether all the pieces were in the box, it would not be a fun exercise.

– Boyan Slat (Founder of The Ocean Clean Up)

Missing piece? That’s every puzzler’s nightmare.

Here are a few of my “missing piece” stories…

As a child, I once did a puzzle together with my mother. It was a beautiful Renaissance painting of two sisters. We really wanted to frame this puzzle so when we discovered a missing piece, my mother thought of a clever solution. She simply cut the missing part out from the box.

A horror story from last year was when I couldn’t find the top left corner piece of a Heye puzzle! I probably could’ve written to Heye to request a new piece but I was too lazy to make the effort and ended up passing the puzzle onto my sister (with pre-warning attached)!

A few months ago, I lent a friend my gold Ravensburger Krypt puzzle. She texted me one evening telling me how much she hated the puzzle. Two days later when it was completed, she snapped a photo with a massive disappointment that it was missing a piece! Omg, all that effort and just short of the full reward and satisfaction of finishing it. 😱

What is your “missing piece” solution? Do you have any “horror” stories to share?