Andy Martin

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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One of the earliest tricks I purchased was a version of Ribbon Fantastique by the amazing Ed Massey. This version has an interesting approach, looks great, and has a great patter story.

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This is an amazing add-on to Tenyo’s Mystic Scope (T-230) by Tomoyuki Shimomura and really takes the effect to the next level and beyond. This is easily my favorite of the Jenzo Harmonics effects I have seen, and apparently is quite popular. There is no force and yet you can predict two levels of outcome – who was the killer and how did they do it. And once you get comfortable with the basic version there is also an advanced version to squeeze even more out of the effect.

Performed in the right setting this will 100% freak out the audience, it looks so genuine with such authentic looking props. Effects like this are few and far between for sure.

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This is one of the most interesting things that the talented German Craftsman, Thomas Pohle, has released this year.  Just watch the video that Madison has put together – it looks amazing!  It just looks magical and even when you know how it works, you aren’t quite sure why it works 🙂

Great Job Thomas!

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