Andy Martin

Clean, Simple, and Amazing!

Mark Mason puts out a lot of "cool" magic effects, most of which are easy to do and demo really well. Unfortunately, I often find that I don’t perform them. Well this one is different and is already short-listed for my christmas close-up this year.

It really is one of the cleanest transformations of two cards changing from two nines to two tens to a straight black jack where the final two cards can be freely shown from fully from both sides and thrown onto the close-up pad.

The cards are so well made and the gimmick is so clever it is hard to see how you cannot amaze them with this. I’m amazed I missed this before!

Highly Recommended!

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The cleanest Wandering Hole Effect?

Nearly all of Masuda’s effects are clever, but not all of them are going to be performed particularly in a walk-around setting. Not only is this one going to be performed, it can be performed in a walk-around setting because there is no reset.

It looks as clean as the demo – you show a photo of a wine bottle and a black dot on your finger. You place the dot on the photo and it suddenly starts moving around on its own, and you can even see your finger beneath the photo thanks to the hole you’ve just placed on it. Then you can just as easily pull the hole from the photo and the hole is once again on your finger and the photo can be shown cleanly on both sides.

It does take a little practice to get the timing right, but once you have it down you have a mini-miracle that works everytime!

One of the most practical Masuda items!

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Great Quality, Rare, and Perfect for Gambling!

Joe Steven’s puts out some great, high-quality magic, much of which you don’t see at the other guys. When I saw these Hi-Low Spinning Tops I was very excited – they looked different and I knew they would be high quality.

These spinning tops are designed to roll high or low depending on which way you spin them MOST (about 75%) of the time. They are specifically not designed to spin high or low 100% of the time as that would be too easy to spot. Well this is certainly true if you were gambling with them. However, if you are a magician and wanted to use them for a force, you will need to know that they only land high/low about 75% of the time. I verified this by spinning them around 150 times and they are quite amazing.

However, if you were planning on just spinning them once, be ready for an alternate out, because every now and then – to throw off the wise – they will change.

The quality and consistency of these items are great however, and if you’re looking for something different and have a use for these babies you will be hard pushed to find anything like them anywhere else.

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Clever Twist on Grinda Ring

Roy Roth invented the original Grinda Ring which we know more often that not as the Ring Grinder these days. And so it is appropriate that he also came out with this version for Credit Cards.

The box is very nicely made and makes for a perfect switch of the real credit card for a duplicate without any moves or sleights. It all looks totally above board. You place the card in the box, grind it up and the spectator hears the pieces shaking around in the box. You take out the cassette that holds the card pieces in – and they can be clearly seen through a window in the side, you then tip these into an envelope and the pieces can be seen to have gone. Your work is done. It all looks clean, no palming or other moves, and you end up with the restored card in the envelope.

Very nice indeed!

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Amazing puzzle from Masuda

Masuda creates some wonderful effects. I’m not sure you would perform them all to lay people but they are still very clever all the same. This effect is truly a mistifying puzzle and looks exactly as it says.

You start off with an empty blue case and a criss-crossed red case where a blue deck is running through a red case. You pull out the blue cards and freely show and shuffle the cards they all are complete with no holes. These cards are placed into the blue case and fill the case. Now you notice that there is still a full deck in the red case – this time they are red and you pull them out, freely show and shuffle them. When they are returned to the red case they are also shown to fill the deck.

Where the heck did the red deck come from? It was in the X-Zone all along!

Very easy to do, nothing is added or taken away, and you are ready to fool the heck out of them!

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Instant Transformation knocks them right between the eyes!

This is one of the more usable and practical Masuda effects and really is a clean transformation to the spectator’s card.

You show a clearly empty card case and place a joker as a prediction into the case. The spectator chooses a card (forced) but it is not the same as the prediction … you then just flick the case and it suddenly changes to the correct card. The card is taken out and can be examined if desired. The card case is clearly empty.

The transformation is very quick and clean and reset is a snap!

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Another Great Item from Harries!

I have owned a few different Cube A Libre effects and this one, from those fine magic manufacturers in Sweden, might not be quite the very best, but it is very close and I have found it the easiest to use. The other ones I have used worked on a pressure principle. This one uses a simple hidden lever and it makes the mechanism very smooth.

So from a practical stand point this is the most likely to be performed. The gimmicks are made of a fairly light plastic, but they appear to be durable and I have no issues with them. The blocks themselves are wood with numbers stuck on, and the case is plastic. All done with the usual Harries’ quality that we have grown to love. I would probably say that this is one of the nicest items Harries produces.

A very fine and usable version of this wonderful effect.

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Incredibly clean bill penetration and easy to do!

Wow! I love this bill penetration effect from Masuda. It looks amazingly fair with no switches or extra gimmicks and immediate reset.

You show a blank piece of paper and a $100 bill. You then fold the $100 and then fold the piece of paper around the $100. You take a simple utility knife, that is real and very sharp, and pierce both paper and bill. You can clearly see that the blade is going through both. You then pull the knife towards you and cleanly cut them. But when you open them up, only the paper is torn, the bill is perfect.

This has to be seen to be appreciated how clean it is.

Highly Recommend!

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Beautiful and Clever!

Wow this is another beautiful Mikame Craft piece! So often I am surprised by how nice their magic is due to the poor photos the dealers seem to have of their products.

But this box is very solid and beautifully made, and it is one of the cleanest vanishes I have seen. It fits together perfectly and breaks apart just as easily, with nothing to be seen at all – you are left totally clean!

Highly Recommended!

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The Best version of T.A. Waters’ Box Office

There have been many versions of Box Office by T.A. Waters – all unauthorized as far as I know. However, this one is probably the most practical and most reliable I have seen.

The box is small – 3.5 x 3.5 x 2 – and the mechanism works perfectly every time. Unlike some other versions, this box was clearly built from scratch for this routine.

In effect any one of the animals is chosen by the spectator and a single prediction is found in the bottom of the box, that matches. The effect has a different outcome every time. The spectator can open the box and open the prediction themselves. It is a very clean method.

This piece is not part of the Collector’s line of Magic Wagon effects, but it still is a beautiful piece and I really hope it is performed – since it is a really great piece of mentalisim.

Highly Recommended!

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