Got a twofer today. Cute little minis pulled from Warhol’s most iconic works: Marilyn Monroe and the Campbell’s soup can.

So cute! I love this series from Galison.

There’s actually this last one that I have wiffle-waffled on getting. I think it might end up in my collection eventually cause these are just so much fun.

The boxes look good. Just simple and bright, eye-catching. These are such iconic images you really don’t need to put a title on them– so the minimal text totally works. Of course, these are very small boxes so there isn’t a lot of room to screw things up, but it’s also no surprise to me that Galison maximized the small space.

The back has all the art, licensing, and publisher deets.

Really these look good all around apart from sticky residue from the closure. It’s a bummer when that happens.

The pieces are very nice. The are quite thick with very crisply cut edges and have a smooth, matte finish. I didn’t find a single damaged piece in either puzzle.

They are cut a bit loosely however. These pieces will not stay in place whatsoever as you work on the puzzle– on a larger puzzle it would be a huge source of frustration– however, on these very small puzzles it’s relegated to a minor inconvenience.

Here is a curious observation, however. The finish on these minis is much nicer, in my opinion, than the finish on Galison’s standard sized puzzles. Below is a comparison between a mini piece (pink/yellow) and one standard piece (blue/yellow). The standard pieces use a very shiny paper that I have never liked. Look at how much glare comes off of the standard piece, matte puzzles simply look like a finer product and are easier to see. I wish dearly that Galison would switch all their puzzles to this matte paper!

There’s not much to say in terms of how to approach these. I mean, they’re one hundred pieces. Just flip ’em and stick ’em really.

I timed myself doing these just for the heck of it. The Campbell’s soup took me 9 minutes and 34 seconds, while Marilyn Monroe took 12 minutes and 6 seconds.

Final thoughts. Love these! The quality is there and there are a lot of fun, attractive options available. They would make excellent gifts and are approachable if you are trying to ease a buddy into the hobby. I can also imagine keeping a couple out on the kitchen bar for a friend who stops by for coffee, or guests who are the first to show up to a casual get together.

In any case, they must be popular because Galison has added several more series to their mini selection with more slated to be released this fall. I think the MSRP of $7.99 is a tad high for 100 pieces (I’m guessing there’s production expenses that are independent of piece count that factor in here). But despite the price I’m absolutely adding more of these minis to my collection.

---

On the headphones: