| CODE | CLASS | EXAMPLES |
| DEX-UNCA | Uncased Dexterities | Cup & Ball, "Le Pendu", "Theo der Turnier", Tomy's "Crazy Maze", Puzzles using Tops |
| DEX-BALL | Dexterity. Plain Balls into holes | Pentangle "Roly-Poly" puzzles |
| DEX-OBST | Dexterity with sundry obstacles &/or objects | Ramps - bridges - jumping beans - etc. |
| DEX-LQOB | Liquid objects | Mercury manipulation |
| DEX-INLQ | Dexterity in Liquid | Water-filled puzzles |
| DEX-MIRR | Indirect viewing by mirror | Kohner's "Nervous Breakdown" |
| DEX-MECH | Mechanised | Tomy's "Pocketeers" |
| DEX-TOOL | Using tools & magnetic tools | - |
| DEX-RTFL | Route following Dexterity | - |
| DEX-HIDD | Objects concealed from view | Four Generations "Ball in Block", Engel's "Black Box" |
| DEX-ELEC | Electrical & Electronic Dexterities | - |
| DEX-PINB | Pinball related dexterities | Bagatelle |
| DEX-OTH | Other Dexterities | Pneumatic operation |
| RTF-CPLX | Routefinding with Changing Path &/or Complex Traveller | "Frying Pan"(changing), "Yankee"(complex), "Tandem Maze"(complex), "Bootlegger"(complex) |
| RTF-STEP | Routefinding Step Mazes | Ring & Hole mazes, "Pike's Peak" |
| RTF-UNIC | Unicursal Routefinding | Icosian Game, Konigsburg Bridges |
| RTF-SHOR | Shortest Route | - |
| RTF-ANY | Route Mazes (any path) | Most Hedge mazes, Mazes on surface of a cube, Ball in 4x4x4 cube of cubelets |
| RTF-OTH | Complex Route Mazes with special objectives | "Worried Woodworm", Colour Mazes, Number totalling mazes, avoiding objects, visiting places en route |
| TNG-RIGI | Tanglement of Rigid & Semi Rigid Parts | Wire PUZZLES, Cast "ABC", Chinese Rings |
| TNG-R&F | Tanglement of Rigid & Flexible Parts | Hess Wire puzzles, Dalgety's "Devil's Halo" |
| TNG-FLEX | All Flexible Parts | Leather tanglement puzzles |
| TNG-RING | Puzzle Finger Rings | Puzzle Rings, Puzzle Bracelets |
| OPN-BOX | Opening Containers | Boxes, Purses |
| OPN-LOCK | Opening Locks | Padlocks |
| OPN-HIDD | Opening/finding Hidden Compartments not originally designed as puzzles | Chippendale Tea-Chests, Poison Rings. |
| OPN-OTH | Opening other objects | Nut & Bolt, Knives, Pens, Cutlery, Oskar's Keys, Oskar's "Dovetail", "Hazelgrove Box" |
| INT-BOX | Boxes that disassemble | Strijbos Aluminium Burr Box |
| INT-CART | Cartesian (Internal Parts along 3 mutually perpendicular axes) | Burrs, Cutler's Burr in a glass, most plastic keychains, JWIP, "Nine of Swords" |
| INT-POLY | Interlocking Polyhedral & other non-cartesian geometric shapes | Coffin's "Saturn", Squashed burrs |
| INT-OTH | Other Interlocking Shapes | "Tak-it-Apart", "Plato's Plight" |
| JIG-STD | Standard Jigsaws | Can include double sided puzzles, & jigsaws with holes & gaps |
| JIG-IDEN | Jigsaws with identical pieces | "Shmuzzles", Ceramic hexagons, Picture Cubes & Blocks |
| JIG-SLOP | Jigsaws with non perpendicular/sloping cuts | "Broken Heart", Japanese "Sabre Tooth Tiger" |
| JIG-LAYR | Multiple layer Jigsaws | Transparent Escher jigsaw |
| JIG-OTH | Other jigsaws | Stave variable picture, "Toyznet", Bilhourd's incomplete surfaces |
| ASS-CART | Assembly of Cartesian Parts | Pentominoes, Checkerboards, Polycubes, Soma, "Hoffman" cube, "Managon", "Even Steven", Squashed Soma, Laker Cube |
| ASS-STRA | Straight Edge/Face Non-cartesian | Tangram, T-puzzle, Triangular & Hexagonal polyominoes, 9-piece ivory cube |
| ASS-POLY | Assembly Polyhedra & Spheres | Ball Pyramids |
| ASS-OTH | Assembly of other shapes | Pack the Plums, Apple & Worms, "Phoney Baloney", Gears |
| PAT-EDGE | Matching Edges &/or Corners patterns | Heads & Tails, "Dodeca", Macmahon squares |
| PAT-STIX | Patterns of sticks | Match Puzzles, Jensen's "Tricky Laberint" |
| PAT-NUMB | Arrangements of Number Patterns | Magic Squares, Number Puzzles |
| PAT-SIMI | Pattern arrangements of similar, points, pegs, or pieces according to predetermined rules | Queens on Chess Board, Josephus, Waddington's "Black Box", "Instant Insanity", "Dodeca", Macmahon cubes, Bognar's "Planets" |
| PAT-DISS | Arrangement of dissimilar pieces to make pattern according to predetermined rules | "Testa", Skor Mor's "Instant Indecision", Chinese Balls in Ball, Waddington's "Kolor Kraze" |
| PAT-STAK | Stacking, Overlapping & Weaving Patterns | Stacking Transparent Layers, "Lapin", Loyd's Donkeys, Weaving puzzles |
| PAT-OTH | Other Pattern puzzles | Oskar's "Solar System" |
| FOL-SPRI | Folding Springy wire and strips | "Why Knots", Mobius Strips |
| FOL-HGOP | Folding Hinged parts in Open chain | Rubik's "Snake", Strung Cubes, Clinch Cube |
| FOL-HGCL | Hinged Parts in Closed chain | Flexagons, Rubik's "Magic", "Flexicube" |
| FOL-SHEE | Folding sheets & strips | Map Folding, "Jail Nixon", strip polyhedra |
| SEQ-PLAC | Sequential Placement | "Psychic Puzzle", "Fit Puzzle" |
| SEQ-RIVR | Sequential River Crossing | "Wolf,Sheep & Cabbage" |
| SEQ-HOPP | Sequential Hopping & Jumping. | Solitaire, Tower of Hanoi, Counter & Peg moving puzzles |
| SEQ-SIMP | Sequential Simple Sliding & Shunting (No group moves needed) | 15s puzzle, Tit-Bit's "Teasers", "Inversions" |
| SEQ-GRP | Sliding & Shunting with Mechanical or Rotating parts (some Group moves NEEDED) | "Tower of Babel", "Missing Link", "Backspin", "Turntable Train", Tomy's "Great Gears", Raba's "Rotascope", "Rubik's" Cube, "Orbit" |
| SEQ-ROLL | Sequential Rolling | Rolling 8 Cubes |
| SEQ-OTH | Sequential Miscellaneous Mechanical | "The Brain", "Hexadecimal", "Spin Out" |
| JUG-STD | Puzzle Vessels standard (built-in tubes to suck) | - |
| JUG-CPLX | Complex Vessels requiring special manipulation | Gemma Patent 2006, Combination JUG-STD/JUG-BASE |
| JUG-BASE | Vessels that pour from Base | "Jolly Jugs", Thrift Cups |
| JUG-NLID | Lidless Vessels (fill from base) | Cadogan Teapots, Chinese winepots |
| JUG-OTH | Other vessels | Royale's "Self-Pouring" Patent, Spoutless winepots (hydraulic seal) |
| OTH-ELEC | Electrical & Electronic (non-dexterity) | - |
| OTH-BAL | Balancing (non-dexterity) | "Columbus Egg" |
| OTH-MEAS | Measuring & Weighing Puzzles | Jugs & Liquids, 12 Golf Balls, Archimedes Gold |
| OTH-CUT | Cutting Puzzles | Cork for 3 Holes, Five Squares Puzzle |
| OTH-WORD | Puzzles applied to objects, the puzzle more usually found printed on paper | Rebus, Anagrams, Riddles, Crosswords, Etc. (on Plates, Jugs, Loo Paper, etc.) |
| OTH-RIDD | Riddles | Riddles (on Plates, Jugs, Loo Paper, etc.) |
| OTH-MATH | Mathematical Puzzles (excluding number pattern arrangements) | - |
| OTH-LOGI | Logic Puzzles | Cartoon pictures to arrange in order |
| OTH-TRIK | Trick or Catch Puzzles (solution needs subterfuge) | "Infernal Bottle", Some magic tricks |
| OTH-MAGI | Magic & Conjuring Puzzles | Self-working magic tricks |
| OTH-MYST | Objects whose function or material is a mystery | Wotsits, Creteco spacers |
| OTH-VIRT | Puzzles whose existence is only theoretically possible. | Such as 4d puzzles, or those which can ONLY be represented on a computer |
| OTH-SET | Sets of Puzzles of Mixed Type | Compendiums of mixed type puzzles |
| OTH-PEND | PENDING CLASSIFICATION !! | Puzzles awaiting classification |
| AMB-POBJ | Paradoxical Objects (Objects that apparently cannot be made) | Arrow through bottle, Impossible Dovetails, Oskar's "Escher Puzzle", Penrose triangles. |
| AMB-VANI | Vanishing Images | "Vanishing Leprechauns", Hoopers paradox |
| AMB-DIST | Distortions | Anamorphic pictures |
| AMB-ARCH | Archimboldesque Objects | Pictures and objects of one subject made up from unrelated images or objects. |
| AMB-HIDD | Hidden Image Pictures (no manipulation required) | Devinettes (obscure outlines), "Spot the Difference", Random Dot Stereograms |
| AMB-HMAN | Hidden Image Pictures (Manipulation Required) | "Naughty Butterflys", "Find the 5th Pig", Needing coloured overlays, Soot on unglazed part of ashtray |
| AMB-TURN | Pictures that require turning to show different images. | Landscape turned to make a portrait, Topsey Turveys, OHOs, Courtship/Matrimony, Monk/donkey vesta |
| AMB-ILLU | Perception Illusions | Optical Illusions, Weight Illusions |
| EPH-SHAD | Shadow effects | Hold to light cards producing movements by shadows, Shadowgraphs, Wiggle-Woggle Hold--to-Light cards |
| EPH-HTL | Images revealed by Holding to Light | Protean Views, Hold to Light advertisements |
| EPH-MICR | Images & words concealed by extreme smallness | Micro printing |
| EPH-MOIR | Effects produced by moire patterns | - |
| EPH-HOLO | Holograms | Holograms of Puzzles solving themselves |
| EPH-ANAG | Anaglyphs | Requiring red & green glasses for either 3D or movement effects |
| EPH-STRP | Strip Pictures (Different views from different angles) | Framed strip prints showing 3 different views |
| EPH-OTH | Other puzzle related ephemera | Non-rebus heiroglyphics |
| XXX-DEL | Deleted Record | Database use: - Removed from collection, sold or upgraded |
| XXX-XXX | Lost records | Database use: - Erroneously unallocated Acquisition number. |