Author: reviews

Designed originally by Rich Bloch and Nick Ruggiero; with exclusive permission from George J. Cook.  This is the latest version newly redesigned by George Robinson in 2016 with new electronics and mechanics and now even more reliable than ever.

In early 2017 I finally received this extremely popular item from the Collectors’ Workshop line-up from my good friend George Robinson at Viking/CW.  Unfortunately, due to a massive kitchen renovation, it was put away in a storage room for over two years and I did not uncover it until this morning.

Firstly, it is packed to withstand a bomb blast.  These new custom PVC cases that George is using are amazing.  I read the detailed instructions and then set about my first attempt to set this up.  Like most multi-phase electro-mechanical props it takes a while the first time to get it right.  George’s instructions are clear and detailed but it took a few moments to affix the rose.  Everything else was straight forward. It uses 4 AA batteries and the ones it came with worked perfectly. Once you have set it up a couple of times you could easily go from case to fully assembled in ten minutes or less.  This model works by sound or remote control and there is an enforced 7 second delay between events.  The four basic events are:

1. Curtain falls
2. Rose flies into the air
3. Tabletop tips over causing all the items to fall on the floor and exposes the selected (wrong) card
4. The pip flies off to reveal the correct card.

While testing this I ran through the full cycle ten times.  The first one out of the gate was nearly perfect, except that the pip fell when the table fell.  It turns out that there is a cover to hide jumbo card on the table and you have to make sure it doesn’t pull off the pip when it falls.  This is covered in the instructions but I didn’t take it too seriously at first.  You need to take it seriously. I ended up rolling the cover away from the card and it worked best that way.  The one other issue I had was I did not set-up the rose properly so it did not fire.  Otherwise things were very reliable.  The last three attempts worked perfectly each time.

I ordered this because I have had plans for some time to do a stage/parlor show in 2020, instead of the normal close-up I perform for my company each year. The last one I did was back in 2010 . Unfortunately since the time I ordered this in 2017 I have decided not to do any more big stage sized shows, they are just too much work and I really enjoy the closeness and ease of the close-up performances of the last few years.  Yes I’m getting too old 🙁

It is a shame because this is a beautiful routine and I know it would be perfect for me. This is the basic routine that Rich Bloch laid out thirty years ago, sheer comedy genius …

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One of my favorite Alan Warner effects is Mini Mental and I still think it is one of the cleanest and cleverest pieces of mentalism that Alan (or anyone else) has produced.  In 2016 Magic Wagon released their Elite Premonition which took Alan’s idea and made it easier to perform. The great German craftsman Will Wessel also created his wonderful version called Colored Number Blocks.

Now Thomas Pohle has released what is probably the cleverest version of all. It is different from all of the above versions and is easily the cleanest and most perplexing I have seen.  No matter how closely you look everything looks 100% above board – you can look from all angles there is nothing to see and nothing to hide.   And yet no matter which order of blocks and numbers the spectator chooses the magicians prediction is always correct. 

Even if you are familiar with the other versions, you will likely still be fooled by this version. You will marvel at how smoothly this bad boy operates – it is amazing!

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In 1994, Rich Block and Nick Ruggiero released one of the most prized creations in the Collectors’ Workshop stable: Silver Odyssey II.  It was a real beauty to behold.  Now Twenty-Five years later George Robinson has created Silver Odyssey III and it looks and works perfectly. 

Internally it does not look quite as stunning – gone are all the gleaming brass and copper components – but noone but the performer ever saw this anyway and it now it works perfectly and more reliably than ever before.  Like the previous versions it does not come with any way to vanish the coins (?).  My suggestions would be to use one of these devices:

• Powell Stevens Otto Mauer Coin Casket
• Coin Stand by Tony Karpinski
• Trabucco Holdout

If you have ever dreamed of performing this effect then I suggest you contact George – he has already sold out twice this year and I don’t know how many more runs he will be making.  It is most certainly the perfect Coins To Glass effect.

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When you’ve see a bunch of similar penetration effects, no matter how well made or how cool they are it is easy to get kind of jaded with them.  That is until you see a great and entertaining video from Madison Hagler which wakes you up, and you say: “What? How did that happen?”  Even though this had been out for a couple of years I just missed it or ignored it the first time around.  It works differently from any other similar penetration and really is quite amazing.

Just watch any of the videos very closely and you’ll swear that the block actually penetrates the solid plate.  Nothing is added or taken away.  The tower and plate are ungimmicked and  although the block is gimmicked (sorry it is not real magic!) the freedom with which you can handle it and spin it around is amazing.  A really excellent job Thomas Pohle, the talented German craftsman who even after seeing all of these effects continues to surprise and amaze me 🙂

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Here is a beauty based on Magiro’s amazing and clever Spirit Dice.

Magic Wagon haven’t really changed anything about the mechanics for this clever item. They have effectively added a box around the whole mechanism and made the effect out of teak. It does look nice and works very well. However, as I have mentioned before, part of the beauty of Magiro’s work was the utter simplicity and lack of anything extra or flashy.  It was the extreme austerity of his props that made the effects so amazing.  That being said, no one makes cool magic boxes like Magic Wagon and they did a marvelous job with this one.

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What a absolutely gorgeous version of the Astro-Ball Cabinet, which of course is none other than Phase 1 of Stewart James’ groundbreaking effect which you can read more about here.

Apart from looking amazing what makes this unique is that it is small enough and designed in such a way that it can be performed in a formal close-up setting without any fear of the spectator seeing anything.  It also comes with four wonderful pages of routine and tips from John M. Talbot.  John provides an interesting story that works hand in hand with the props and some great ideas to take this effect all the way.   John’s video appears to have vanished from You Tube and I could only find the one above.  It is ok but has me wishing for a Speed Demo 🙂

But this item again shows that Magic Wagon continues to rule supreme when it comes to creating stunning, authentic and intriguing looking close-up illusions.  Just look at all of these beauties 🙂

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Nearly all the magic I buy I have zero plans to keep, I just want to be able to present some of the best magic on the planet here at MartinsMagic.com and continue to add to my History Project.  So when I ordered Quantum Bender I had no plans to keep it.  But when I opened it up I thought what a cool and clever gimmick, if I could break out of my safe little shell I could see me doing this thing and having lots of fun with it. 

Time will tell, but I think with some practice you easily have the cleanest and smoothest coin bending  method here and the gimmick is very well engineered and not something you could easily reproduce.  If you keep an eye on my video page you’ll know if I take the plunge.

Either way it is a very cool gimmick and you won’t see it on my auction site just yet 🙂

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What a wonderful upgrade to Paul McCaig’s amazing Mind’s Eye Box, J.C. Moore (Mooreni) has really outdone himself with this beauty. The original version definitely had some old world charm but this deluxe version is much more solidly built and really takes your breath away. If you look at the last few photos you can see how this compares with the original box and it is a little taller and larger all around, which makes it more useful to store items for your act. If you had a choice you would always pick this version of the Mind’s Eye Box – it is beautiful and practical.

What impresses me about this box is that there are no moving parts, no electronics, no magnets, nothing to add to take away, no reset, and yet you are ready to go right away – arrive at the event, pull out your box, take our your tarot cards and other things you store in the box and straight away you can start to read their minds.  What a lovely idea, and will last a lifetime – even if you leave it on your shelf for years before using it!

Inspired by Magnuson’s Devil Device box, as featured in Theodore Annemann’s book Practical Mental Magic (Effects) and also described in The Jinx #89 But unlike the Devil Device there are no moving parts, or the need to touch the box after the spectator had placed their written details inside.  It also doesn’t have some of the angle issues that the original Devil Device had.

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Gimpy has released a new version of his very popular Mighty Mini that now allows you to show the bottom of the box. To be fair there is still an impression on the bottom of the box, which is meant to fade over time according to the instructions though I did not see any evidence of this, so you wouldn’t want to spend too long on the bottom, but a quick flash at any time is fine.  Which is a significant improvement from the original because there was no way you could get close to the bottom before.

This version of the box seems to stay better too.  This is a very nice improvement to an already wonderful and practical version of this effect.

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What a unique idea from Jenzo Harmonics. The tiles seem to have all these random markings and yet during the routine you tall an interesting little story and show all 4 suits and the court cards and end with a kicker prediction. Great stuff!

The effect involves a final reveal of a particular (forced) card. The routine includes an engaging story with the tiles showing several symbols and images before revealing a spectator’s card.

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