The Ring Thing by Collectors’ Workshop

This is the first time I have seen this amazing effect which is Classic Nick Ruggiero ingenuity. You have to wonder how he came up with the idea and the unique brass gimmick to make it all work so well. When Rich Bloch and Nick were cooking they created some truly unique items at Misty Morn Farm 🙂

I know The Ring Thing was released after the first catalog (c. 1987) and before 1991 (because I have a Ron Allesi newsletter advertising a used one in March 1991). But I could not find any advertising anywhere for it and by the time the second catalog was released (c. 1996) it was nowhere to be seen. It is strange it was not continued because it seems to work very well and is certainly unique. It might be a little daunting when you first see the props. But a quick study of the well illustrated instructions (six pages) with the props in hand will quickly make you an expert and you will see it is actually very straight forward.

The set-up from scratch takes about five minutes for one card but you could easily prepare a bunch and you could get the reset to about a minute.

Apart from the cool brass mechanism this uses I love how you freely hand the deck to the spectator and they can open up the deck to find their actual ring hanging from their chosen card. And then they need a pair of scissors to remove the ring as it is glued on so tightly 🙂

Effect: The performer borrows a ring and causes it to disappear. (Or he grinds it up in a Collectors’ Workshop Ring Cruncher.) Unable to restore the ring, the magician offers to do a card trick.

The magician picks up a deck of round punchings and casually fans through them face up, showing them to be all different. He then turns the punchings face down and asks the spectator to “Pick a c.enter-any center.” The spectator picks a punching. The performer puls the rest of the centers away, then reaches in his pocket and brings out a “hollow deck”. He removes the cards from the case and hands them to, the spectator. When the spectator removes the jokers to expose the hole in the deck, he is astounded to find his missing ring hanging on a ribbon inside the hole.

The spectator removes the single card holding the ring. The ring is trapped on the ribbon, which is securely glued to the card. The magician brings out a pair of scissors to cut the ribbon free. The card holding the ring exactly matches the punching selected by the spectator.

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