I recently had the opportunity to review a few products by the company Three by Three Seattle, an endeavor which once again proved that old adage true: good things come in small packages. The star of the show was a not-even-palm-size plastic envelope containing eight not-even-pea-sized silver magnets. Three by Three calls these studs “mighties,” and promises that they are “amazingly strong magnets. Unbelievably powerful! …and yet so small” (1/4 inch diameter small, to be exact).

Amazingly strong? Unbelievably powerful? I’m pretty small and definitely mighty, so I’m familiar with the idea of those two features co-existing. Nevertheless, I had my doubts.

So I got busy investigating whether the mighties could really hold their weight. Business cards seemed the obvious choice (because they happened to be next to me on the desk) and so began the titillating and also tedious process of adding card after card to reveal the point at which the mighties would cry ‘mercy.’

In the end, after many cheers from me and bored sighs from onlookers, the mighties magnetics triumphed over 7.5 cards. I say 7.5 because they really did hold 8, but it wasn’t a firm hold. There was some slight slippage downwards, or so said the judges. But 7 were held so solidly that the mighties seemed deserving of an additional half point. “Unbelievably powerful!” I shrieked in delight.

While 7.5 business cards may not sound like all that many, we must take into account the thickness of the cardstock, the impressively minimal size of the magnets, and the fact that most massive magnets can barely hold up a flimsy ass grocery store receipt without slipping down into the freezer.

The side view more accurately portrays the thickness through which the magnetic forces of the mighties permeated. That’s pretty thick!

Here’s where I started to get impressed. Cards, shmards, I thought. Let’s stop messing around and give this little nugget-magnet a real challenge. So the keys where brought in. And guess what? The mighties magic magnet fairies latched onto that key ring with the force of the universe I tell you.

Zero slippage downage whatsoever. Those keys weren’t going anywhere.

You know how eight-year-olds always pass around that fact about how ants are so strong they could pick up a car? Did that urban legend only exist in my childhood? Well, anyhow, the metaphor applies here because those mighties were the ants, and those keys, the car. Boom. Lifted. Just picture that; a Honda pilot being moved across the street by an unseen brigade of black ants.

Scoop your mighties up here and try to stop thinking about bugs now cause they’re gross.