Category:Brian Young

Brian Young (of Mr. Puzzle in Australia) has been making a full-time living from puzzles since 1993 and has been collecting puzzles since he was a boy. His personal collection is now approaching 3000 pieces which he points out is by no means a large collection compared to others in the world. Some puzzles in Brian’s collection are more than 150 years old.

The puzzles Brian makes are all hand-crafted and come in three ranges - Standard, Craftsman and his annual Limited Editions which are released just prior to Christmas each year and which are sought after by puzzle collectors. Brian began making only six of each puzzle in 1993 but, due to demand, he now produces up to 50 of each design - only that set number will EVER be made and Brian always keeps one for himself.

Brian began making the Limited Edition range as a way of adding puzzles not generally or commercially available to his own puzzle collection. Puzzles are chosen for either historical significance or aesthetic value, not necessarily degree of difficulty. An additional puzzle element is often added to make the puzzle unique - most times, it also increases the level of difficulty.

While a lot of modern puzzles are created and designed on computer, Brian still invents his own creations in his head. For a while, before computer programs came into their own, Brian's puzzle, Coming of Age Mk II, held the world record for the maximum amount of moves to remove the first piece of a commercially-produced puzzle. It has a difficulty rating of 10 and it takes 19 directional moves just to remove the first piece!!!

In more recent times Brian's become very interested in designing and making Sequential Discovery puzzles; a sub set of Take-Apart puzzles. The key difference between a sequential discovery puzzle and other take apart puzzles is that you will remove pieces that will have to be re-used as tools or reinserted to advance.

Brian Young is a member on this wiki, if you wish to contact them you can leave them a message on their Talk page.