The Devil’s Card Box (Diabolus-Kassette) by Uli Kigele, Eckhard Boettcher

What a striking and unique item Diabolus-Kassette is 🙂

I don’t know much about Uli Kigele but he has written for Eckhard Boettcher and also crafted less than 100 of these boxes.  The box is based upon an Herbert Martin Paufler idea and it is striking, clever and very rich and colorful looking.

When I received the box it came with German instructions which I translated using Google which did an ok job, but you have to spend quite a lot of time figuring out what Google really means when referring to magic effect descriptions.  I worked on the first routine provided, streamlined it, and created what I feel is a wonderful routine that my video hopefully demonstrates.

But I am just scratching the surface of what this box can do.  It is a utility box that permits two specific events. But with some thought you can do even more. The reset is quick and you can show the box cleanly.  You can make things appear, vanish or change and there are no flaps to deal with.

I think this is the sort of item that the two talented Canadian’s, John and Simon, could really go to town with 🙂

Warning: The mechanism that makes this work is delicate and you have to twist the skull head just a small amount in either direction.  If you force it you will break it 🙁  But as long as you treat it with respect it will last a long time.  For this reason however, I would not hand it out to the spectators.

Effect: The Devil’s Card Box is introduced and a deck of cards is removed from the box.  The cards are freely shown to be all different and the spectator chooses any card from the deck.  They return it face down into the face down deck and place it back into the Card box.

The magician asks the first spectator to stare into the eyes of the Devil and in an instant he asks “Did you feel that?”  The lid is lifted and the whole deck has turned over.  Taking the cards out and searching through the deck all of the cards are face up except for one card that is face down – it is the specator’s card.

A second spectator is asked to cut the cards anywhere and they mark the cut.  The performer asks the spectator if he is ready to dance with the Devil and then look at their card.  The spectator is asked to bury the card in the middle of the deck – there is no doubt their card is buried in the middle of the deck. And the deck is placed face down back into the card box.

The magician asks the second spectator to stare into the eyes of the Devil and in an instant asks again: “Did you feel that?”  The performer asks the spectator the name of their chosen card and slowly lifts the lid – staring back at the spectator the chosen card has turned over and has jumped to the top of the deck.

We have just been playing with playing cards here, but with a little bit of thought you could use specially themed cards and really freak them all out 🙂

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