Author: reviews

Stan Watson was a talented and generous professional performer and I was lucky enough to be at the Sussex Magic Circle when he was a member. You could always see the difference between his performances and the other guys. His scissors are absolute gold

If you get the original ones signed by Stan Watson himself they will last a lifetime – these photos are of my set which are 42 years old!

Click here for more information.

Stan Watson was a talented and generous professional performer and I was lucky enough to be at the Sussex Magic Circle when he was a member. You could always see the difference between his performances and the other guys. His scissors are absolute gold

If you get the original ones signed by Stan Watson himself they will last a lifetime – these photos are of my set which are 42 years old!

Click here for more information.

What a great way to vanish a silk. Similar to the Wonder Silk Vanishing Tube and looks totally convincing to the spectator.  I think the Wonder Silk is a little easier, but they are very close and people certainly like the cleanness of the transparent tube.  And the price is right too.

Click here for more information.

I remember first seeing this at a show hosted by the Sussex Magic Circle back in the early 1970’s. I thought it was amazing. Though not credited in the instructions it is clearly based on a principle discussed by Louis Histed in his book The Magic of Louis S. Histed.  What is so clever about the effect is it really does look like real magic and you can do precisely what it says in the advert.

For a performance in The Porcupine I decided to use beer instead of milk and noticed an additional effect – after the penetration the beer has no head.  Now in the UK most of us like a good head on our beer, but often in the USA you don’t so the idea of the “Patent Pending Beer Head Extractor” was born 🙂

Of course the apparatus works perfectly with milk too – nothing is changed but the presentation but I thought you would appreciate the routine below.  Use your own beer or milk.

Click here for more information.

What a beautiful and clever idea from the talented craftsman from Croatia, Damir Djanis.  This is the third of Damir’s items released by George Robinson at Viking Mfg. and I think it is the best so far. 

I’ve always liked the Cabala type effect but have never been happy with the angle issues. But now thanks to Damir and George those issues are gone.  This is a brilliant solution and works perfectly.  You can have the whole unit examined and do the magic right in front of them with nothing added or taken away.

The only issue I had with it was that I was not too excited by the patter about Alan Turing.  Being a computer guy for almost fifty years I admire and respect Alan Turing as much as the next person but the routine did not work for me.

I came up with idea of using the box as a counterfeit detector and my routine is below.  However, to do my routine you need three Silver Morgans (one of which is real) and the other two are fake, but only one is magnetic.  I used to think all fake Silver Morgans were magnetic (certainly all the ones I had were), but it turns out that is not the case and when I realized it, this feature led me to my routine.  When you purchase this from Viking you will only get one fake non-magnetic Silver Morgan.  But for my routine you’ll need three Silver Morgans (two fake, only one of which is magnetic) and a real Silver Morgan too.

Thanks Damir and George this is a wonderful item 🙂

Click here for more information.

This is a really beautiful version of Silkola from a new manufacturer Darren Heppel and his company DS Magik. Darren has been interested in magic for many years but has only recently started building his own props. Though based on his first two items he has released you could never tell.  His finish out and eye for detail will give even the modern-day prop master Michael Baker a run for his money 🙂

This is Darren’s take on the Silkola effect invented by Lennart Bondesson of Sweden c. 1966 and sold to Supreme Magic Co. of England when it was first marketed c. 1967. It is very similar to Michael Baker’s version, they even use the same ornate bottle.  Michael’s graphics and finish still have an edge but it is close.

Click here for more information.

This is the Talismanic Card in Wallet or Window Wallet that inspired Dave Bendix to create the Bendix Bombshell.  This wallet was made by Roy Roth, but it is based on the original ones made by Ed Brown. Ed Brown created the Window Wallet c. 1975 and a routine using it was published in Kabbala Vol.3, No. 1, January 1976, called: Between Elmsley, Brown, and Himber. The Window Wallet was the inspiration for a number of great card men including, Ed Marlo, Dave Solomon (using Ed Brown’s own wallet), Jon Rachenbaumer (Talismanic Card in Wallet – Lecture Notes 1, 1976) , and Dave Bendix to create some wonderful Card to Wallet routines.  The second you see the the diagram on page 1 of the Kabbala article you will recognize the familiar set-up for the special Himber wallet that we recognize today as the Bendix Bombshell.

Having seen both wallets up close I really like the cleanness of The Talismanic Card and made it up using some of the new Jerry’s Nuggets cards and it looks and works perfectly.  The Bendix might be a tad more impressive but it is also a little harder to work so for many people the Talismanic  will be a welcome surprise.

Click here for more information.

This is a very funny routine created by Roy Roth.  Roy had already marketed Lubor Fiedler’s Red Hot Wire (with permission) as Hot Line c. 1972 and came up with this funny routine that really made the most of the wire gimmick.

I’ve always liked the premise behind Hot Cross Cards, but there were a few weaknesses in the original offering:

1. An ESP symbol needs to be forced out of the five cards and the only force given was “The Classic Force.”.  Which is fine, but not going to work for a lot of people.  So I added a full deck of ESP cards (26 cards) and created a bank of 12 cards that were all the same, so now you could casually show the cards apparently different, but also easily force the correct one.  (For a while I even created a Svengali ESP deck but that actually proved to be problematic as part of the routine requires you to deal out the five ESP cards which proved to be difficult with a Svengali deck.)
2. The effect required the use of five slices of real bread which were messy and required replacement frequently.  Luckily these days it is possible to get fake slices of bread that look and feel real from a short distance, without the downsides of flaking and going moldy which is what I supplied.
3. I also upgraded the ring box that housed the red hot wire as the original cardboard one was prone to damage.
4. I added a nice red velvet bag to hold the slices of bread to improve the delivery of the joke regarding fine engraved leather covers all the way from Italy.
5. A minor annoyance was the original instructions did not include the routine that appeared in the first adverts that were released to sell this effect. So I also included a full routine with patter based on the advert and the instructions for easy reference.

With these changes you now have an almost perfect and truly offbeat effect which I think Roy Roth would be happy with.  It is a really fun item 🙂

Click here for more information.