4 Stars

Professor Hoffman your Coin Wand is here!

Ever since I saw the Coin Wand in Hoffman’s Modern Magic (page 203 in my edition) I have always thought this was a cool utility device. Until this baby arrived I had never actually seen one up close.

The wand is nicely made and works very smoothly. It allows you to vanish and appear as many dollar sized coins as you fancy – without any difficult sleights or moves.

The choice of a Dollar coin as opposed to a Half Dollar is interesting: on the one hand the coins are clearly visible from quite a distance, but the downside is the wand has these unusual slightly flared ends to accomodate the size of the coin. I do most of my magic in close-up and parlour settings these days, so I would have preferred the smaller sized coins with less of a flare. However, if you are using this in the bigger venue then you probably won’t even notice the taper and you really benefit from the bigger coin. It is probably a small point, but worth mentioning.

Otherwise, this is another fine magic utility from Joe Porper.

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Very nice watch, and surprising revelation!

This watch looks like a nice quality dress watch. But it has the wonderful property of behing able to make a selected card (forced of course) appear beneath the watch face.

It works very quietly and smoothly and is a great utility prop that can be used at anytime in your act. Seeing the card on the watch face is a real surprise and fools them everytime!

The only downside is that you cannot use the watch to tell the time. This is kind of a silly thing, but that is how it goes I guess.

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This looks like hard-core Sleight of Hand!

This is a great matrix like effect with 3 coins and 3 cards. It looks like you are a very accomplished sleight of hand expert, but it is very easy to do. Reset is easy too. It does need to be performed on a close-up mat.

You could even do it with one hand, which is the way Wayne Dobson demonstrated it to me at the recent TAOM convention, and it totally fooled me.

What a talented and truly nice guy Mr. Dobson is!

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If you like Big Red you’ll love this one!

This is a simple but surprising revelation of the spectator’s (forced) card, using a picture of a flasher!

The wallet that comes with it is specially made such that it appears that you really are pulling out the "unexposed" view of the flasher, but it allows you to switch it for the full frontal version.

Very easy to do, and makes a nice break from the other heavy magic I’m sure you are performing 🙂

This is not offensive, and comes from the fertlie mind of Wayne Dobson.

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Grab these while you can!

This little bottle is a wonderful piece that you will be proud to own. It is easy to do and comes with some great ideas. I suggest you snap these up because I don’t know how George is able to offer these at such low prices. For the amount of work involved they are a huge deal!

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Surprisingly Nice!

When I purchased this effect on ebay I wasn’t sure how good it would be. When it arrived I still wasn’t sure. But after playing with it for a while I’ve decided it really is a nice peice of magic.

The card dice are well made, the box they come in is practical, albeit not beautiful or solid wood, and the gimmicked cards are preprinted on bicycle stock and look great.

The basic effect is as follows: you show 6 card dice on all sides and assemble them into a card shape. The card showing on both sides is all mixed up of course and you cover the whole stack with a silk. A spectator chooses a card (forced) and the silk is lifted and the card dice have transformed into their chosen card! The magician offers to perform it again but this time they choose a card and don’t look at it. The magician then reveals the card dice again and amid giggles from the audience he notices that instead of being a complete card it is a jumbled up mess. But never mind because when the spectator turns their card over it too is a jumbled up mess.

The effect requires two cards to be forced and a simple move which is certainly not big enough to call a sleight, plus you have the full cover of the silk to do it under. After thirty minutes you’ll have the workings of this down pat, and then of course you’ll just need to focus on your overall presentation.

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No new concepts here, but beautifully made all the same!

This is a dressed up version of an old principle that works very well. The block and cabinet are very solid and beatifully made. The doors are a bit too tight when you first get it but after a few practices this loosens up ok.

The effect is certainly easy to do and it is a real fooler. You simple show the cord running through the cube and box, then close it all up and on your command the cord penetrates the box, and everything can be examined.

Some good news: it doesn’t use any threads, there is nothing to switch, and reset takes about 10 seconds.

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This Makes More Sense than a Niffen Tube!

So the problem with a Niffen Tube is that it’s a Niffen Tube – what the heck is one of those? This Cocktail Shaker on the other hand will pass for a real cocktail shaker and can be used to transform liquids, silks, or anything small that will fit in the tube. You could transform a red silk to red wine and many other combinations of transformations. I believe the transformation is also more convincing than a regular tube too.

This device is very nicely made using stainless steel and will last a life time. I found the screw on lids to not screw down all the way, but that looked like it was done by design.

This effect is made in Germany and is distributed by Viking Mfg and it’s ever growing dealer network.

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Great trick but where have I seen that wallet before?

Ok, this effect is a fine effect using a very well made wallet that allows you to perform a very direct and simple think of any hour type effect.

But just in case you already have the Heirloom Wallet, think twice before you buy this effect since the wallet is almost exactly the same. In fact, either the same manufacturer made these and made a slight change to one pocket at the end, or this wallet was altered slightly for the Heirloom Wallet. You could certainly use the Heirloom Wallet for this effect, but it would be nice to have the specially printed (and laminated) cards.

This effect is not as strong as Heirloom primarily due to the presentation. Otherwise it is still a worth having, just don’t buy both wallets – unless like me you fancy doing an easy any card from wallet and purchase 4 wallets!!!

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