Author: reviews

Ed Massey invented this clever and original effect.  The initial version of Squeeze Away Block first appeared in Blackstone’s Annual of Magic c. 1929 in a contribution written and illustrated by Massey. Commercial versions started appearing c. 1946.

This is Conjuror’s Workbench (Jack Ruda) beautiful close-up version of it where you visibly make the solid center block disappear right in front of their eyes only to have it show up in a hat or somewhere else.

Made from solid black walnut, hand rubbed furniture-grade finish, top and sides are doweled with brass pins and the bottom is attached with screws for strength. The blocks are solid maple and the gimmick is made of brass and aluminum. There were only 12 of these made.

As much as I love the mechanics of the larger versions of this effect, they do have some real angle issues. The close-up versions are much easier to perform and this version from Jack Ruda is perfect to perform.

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Here is a wonderful collection of low priced “Collector’s” items from the famous Indian producer of magic products Sam Dalal ? Good old Sam the Sham, you can’t keep a good man down.

No one is going to believe these items rival the wood craftsmanship of (in no particular order) Colin Rose, Alan Warner, Kent Bergmann, Owen Magic Supreme, Michael Baker, Paul Lembo, Mel Babcock, Dave Powell, Magic Wagon, Thomas Pohle, Francois Danis, Louis Gaynor, Viking Mfg., to name just a few of the many thousands on this website.

However, if you have a low budget or are used to plastic versions of these items you’ll be more than happy with these wooden miracles from Sam.

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This is Richard Himber’s brilliant “The Big Trick” 🙂  This was initially released with the Topper effect, and was later advertised on its own. It is more startling than Topper which is probably why they did that.

I’ve seen many version’s of the razor blade cutting the deck, and it all started with Richard Himber’s Big Trick.  The quality of this box is something to behold: fine Italian leather, 24k gold dectorating, and solid gleaming chrome.  Looks stunning and beautiful.

The effect is easy to do and the reset takes less about a minute.  I love it 🙂

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I’ve wanted to obtain one of Richard Himber’s Topper card boxes for many years and finally managed to track one down.  It looks beautiful and the two effects that were released with it are perfect:

• Topper
• The Big Trick

The key with this effect is the force has to be clean and so I created a special deck and added the torn corner to really sell the finale.  I don’t think it gets much better than this.

It is easy to do and has a very quick reset.  If you don’t want to tear the corner (which was not originally part of Richard’s effect) then the reset is even simpler, but I think it adds a lot with the torn corner.

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What an absolute beauty this card box is from Bill Adams’ World of Magic. This is one of the very few card boxes I have seen that locks both ways – before the change the box can be examined and after the change too.  In fact you can actually use it multiple times. The craftsmanship on this box is easily as good as Owens Magic.

There are no magnets to get in the way either, with nothing added or taken away.  Pretty much the perfect Card Box.

Notice: It is a good size but will not hold a standard Jumbo card.

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The standard version of this effect was apparently so popular the mini version was released about six months later.  When I first saw this version I thought it was the mini version until I received it and noticed it weighed twice as much as the standard version.  So this is not the “Mini” version.  Internally it is quite a lot more complex than the original version released by Tannen’s too.  So I don’t know if this was later released by Tannen’s or in fact a different manufacturer.  I am assuming it was created by a different manufacturer.

The one improvement on this version is you can cleanly slowly the back of the prop without any thumbs.  However, this also means that you actually have to touch the box to discover what the choices were.

Although this appears to be a copy of the Tannen’s version (which itself is inspired by Ed Mellon’s Quantimental) it could in fact have been released earlier.

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This clever effect is sadly not new with Tannen’s 🙁

The same basic method was actually created ten years earlier by Ed Mellon and engineered by James Swoger as Quantimental. In fact Quantimental is easier to set, more flexible, quieter, and has more choices.

However, even if Divining Rods is not as good as the original it is still a great prop and will certainly fool the average person. As we saw with the Jewels of Shah Jahan the problem with these clever devices that allow us to determine what the spectators have chosen is how to reveal them.  I thought about a simple routine which I hope will come over in my Speed Demo 🙂

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