4 Stars

Thanks to Nick Trost (Card Magic of Nick Trost, pg. 99) the history of using playing cards for running a horse race traces back to at least 1914  and a race game called “Minoru” after King Edward VII’s racehorse.  Then John Scarne described the Horse Race card game c. 1949 in Scarne on Cards and in 1952 Toni Koynini was the first magician to use the horse race as a gambling demonstration with  his routine Derby.

Harries’ Goran Klyve has created a wonderful version of a horse race that is very simple to perform, looks bright and colorful, and seems very clean to the spectator.  The method is not earth shattering but very workable and giving the cards to both spectators to shuffle half each seems totally fair.

(Notice: there are some black marks and a small patch of sharpie touch-up at one end where I tried to clean off the marks with acetone, which was a bad idea.  But you will barely notice it – I did include a photo near the end to try and highlight the situation, but it was quite difficult to photograph because it is barely noticeable, and certainly has no impact on the effect.)

Notice: Use your own currency, $100 not included 🙁

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Fifth times a charm? Not for me 🙁

So here is yet another version of the T.A. Waters’ amazing Box Office which has been recreated so many times it is hard to keep up.

Magic Wagon themselves have now produced five different versions of this effect. For this version they have changed the internal mechanism quite drastically. As a result you no longer require a paper clip attached to the predictions, and the prediction is seen roughly in the center of the box.

However, for me, these are only things magicians even think about, and I prefer the simpler classic mechanism.  I found this new method a little more finicky and the change does not seem like progress.  The box looks amazing and it will look great in your collection.  But if I was going to perform this effect I would use Mind Paintings II or preferably my custom version here which I feel are both superior to this version.

Magic Wagon’s other versions of Box Office:

• Mental Safari
• Mental Safari Deluxe
• Mind Paintings
• Mind Paintings II
• Egyptian Prediction Chest

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Harry Keyl from Holland created a nice line of quality plastic magic which has become quite collectible over the years.  This one looks great and although it might not be the most amazing piece of mentalism you’ve seen it is easy to do and can be built into something bigger for sure.

There is no memory work and once you read the instructions you’ll be golden. Which is a pretty impressive feat because the original instructions I received were not clear at all how to perform the effect so I had to rewrite them 🙂

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This effect originally called Bloxo, was invented by John Rice and sold by Harry Stanley c. 1960.

Pagoda is the definitive version of the the effect using a solid blade or rod to secure the blocks and was created magnificently by the Dutch master craftsman: Eddy Taytelbaum.  Eddy did such an amazing job he inspired many craftsmen including: Alan Warner, Mel Babock, Milson-Worth and more recently Magic Wagon to create their own versions.

However, one feature that Marvillo invented is the ability to let the chosen blocks release one at a time as chosen by the spectator.  This might be possible with some of the other versions once you know what to do but not with most, and Marvillo specifically designed his box to permit it.  This box is a little chunky when compared to the fine lines of Eddy Taytelbaum and Alan Warner, but still looks good and works very well.

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Another great close-up item from the German Magic Craftsman: Thomas Pohle.  This is based on Hoffman’s Obedient Ball as featured in Professor Hoffman’s Modern Magic.  Though this effect is of Japanese origin and is sometimes known as the Japanese Ball. The most popular version of this effect is Tenyo’s Cubio.  Colin Rose created a very nice version that is shown here.

One feature with Thomas’ version is that the cubes can be set live in front of the audience so that everything can 100% be examined. This same feature was also present in Brema’s Triple Mystery Cube c. 1932 and later in Carl’s son William Brema’s Cubio c.1946. Thomas’ version takes a little knack to be able to set these blocks so that they can stop and start on demand.  Doing this live in front of the audience might be tricky, or at least I found it so.

One approach is to set both blocks before you begin.  Then have then select either block at first and show the stop and start with that block.  Then release it and hand it to the spectator to do the same thing.  They can’t of course. Then you still have the second block ready to go to do the do as I do.

Of course with practice you will be able to hook up live with ease, but I found that some trial and error is required at first.

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This Ring Box works well and is quite clever.  However, it has two main flaws for simply vanishing a ring:

• The box is quite large. If you compare it with Sans Minds’ Vanishing Ring (see last two photos), you’ll see how much bigger it is.
• You cannot retrieve the ring secretly from the bottom.  So you vanish the ring – how do you extract it?

That being said as a result of these issues it can be used to vanish AND appear rings and small items which might be what you are looking for.  I can see it being useful if you want to make a ring appear inside the box. You can also do this repeatedly should you want some sort of running gag, but I’m think it would become less convincing if repeated.

The box does work well and the mechanism seems solid and reliable.  But I would not get this if you mainly want to vanish a ring – I would use Sans Minds Vanishing Ring hands down for that.

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This is a well thought out wallet that is professionally made, looks good and, best of all, the price is very reasonable 🙂

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A nicely made “budget” Ball Vase from Merlin’s Magic and their Premier Range. This is the larger one almost 7″ high with a 2″ red snooker ball. It does not compare with craftsmen like Colin Rose, but if you were looking for a reasonably priced ball vase that works perfectly and still looks nice this would be a contender.

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Thayer’s Great Ballot Box Mystery c. 1916 was hailed as The Wonder Trick of 1916 and what a beauty it was.  Louis Gaynor reproduced one of these for Stevens Magic here.

This version was one of the very early items created by Thomas Pohle when he had a workshop in Berlin.  It was built as a prototype after seeing the effect in Dr. Albo 04 that he borrowed from his magic friend “Braco” (Ralf Wichmann).  A few years later when fellow countryman, Willi Wessel, was renting some space in his workshop,  Thomas gave it to Willi.  I recently purchased it directly from Willi.  This is the only version that Thomas built.

It still works though the handle design is a little fragile and Thomas tells me he would build it a little differently today – of course he was a very young man back then and and has had another 44 years of experience since 🙂

Unlike the original Thayer version, although it is fine for the spectator to handle briefly it cannot be examined as thoroughly and the gimmick is not designed to be removed during performance as with the Thayer version.

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This is an interesting routine for the Matchbox Penetration first created by Jose M. Llacer. I think you can have some fun with the spectator’s ability to not remove the sword from the block, unless they believe in magic 🙂

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