Did you know that Victory puzzles were a favourite with the royal family?

In fact, Gerald Hayter was proud that in 1937, Queen Mary purchased twelve copies of each of Victory's three special coronation puzzles - designed to commemorate the coronation of George VI and his wife Elizabeth that same year.

When we re-established this amazing, century-old brand in 2022, we knew that we would need to constantly improve and innovate on all levels of our product - to ensure that the quality was up to the standards of the puzzles made last century by G.J Hayter & Co. and so dearly loved and collected by so many wooden puzzle enthusiasts for generations. 

February of 2023 saw a massive upgrade of our puzzles from 3mm MDF to premium quality 5mm Linden plywood (similar to the original Victory's and the same wood used to make musical instruments) - a far cleaner and more tactile substrate that is a joy to handle and that also really highlights the quality of our whimsical pieces.

Shortly thereafter we decided that we needed to similarly upgrade our puzzle boxes. The design brief was that they needed to be 'fit for royalty'; very sturdy, very secure, as space efficient as possible, a pleasure to handle and be beautiful enough that one would want to display them with pride on a shelf - especially as enthusiasts build out their Victory collections. We also wanted to add some gold into our design in tribute to the original Victory 'Gold Box' puzzles that are still in so many collections and regularly sought out for sometimes eye watering prices on ebay!

We think we've done a pretty good job of fulfilling the brief of making our puzzles and premium quality packaging, once again, fit for royalty.

If you have any photos of your Victory collection, old or new, please send them in - we'd love to see them!

No.5 - Going back to our roots - a very special collaboration

January 21, 2024 — Andrew Knowles