Reviews: Read What Others Are Saying: page 4
169 ★★★★★ reviews
120 ★★★★★ reviews
78 ★★★★★ reviews
122 ★★★★★ reviews
The Untouchables
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Jesse Hittle (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 10 January, 2024)
Disappeared in this effect. This is my first review here and all I can say is I was fooled into buying this effect. The writing on the effect is misleading.
27 Illusions
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Simon Unwin (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 07 January, 2024)
This book is fascinating! It provides a completely original approach to the multi-dimensional and ever-engaging challenge of designing architecture. Many think architecture is just about the appearance of buildings, but this book presents the surprising idea that it can also be (is) a forum for magic! Magic in the dramatic sense, but also, by extension, magic in more subtle senses too. The magic possibilities of architecture inescapably involve the emotional and imaginative as well as the narrative and aesthetic factors in human experience. I would have enjoyed being a member of Howard's class for this project!!!
Simon Unwin, Emeritus Professor of Architecture and author of 'Analysing Architecture: the Universal Language of Architecture'.
In Your Hands 2 (Italian)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
Molto interessante e vario questo bel libro sugli effetti con le carte da gioco!
Il Secondo Libro Dei Book Test
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
Interessante libro: da studiare con attenzione!
Ken Brooke's Okito Box Routine
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
Stupenda routine con la scatola Okito!
Enciclopedia Cartomagica
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
Il libro più completo e vasto sulla Cartomagia!
DeLand's Automatic Playing Cards (Italian)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
Il miglior e completo libro sul mazzo Deland!
Enciclopedia dell'Illusionismo vol. VII: Cartomagia
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by CARLO ALBERTO MENONCIN (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 05 January, 2024)
It's a complete book of tricks of cards!
Spellbinding Chuckles
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by James E Hofman (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 04 January, 2024)
The forward to the book offers an apologetic introduction to a book that did not even raise ONE smile on my face. None of the one-liners display much cleverness, and I have a difficult time picturing any magician entertaining an audience with these - even though the apologetic introduction said some personalities would be able to pull them off. James E. ("the Professor")
Black Hole
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Abraham Romo (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 31 December, 2023)
This is an excellent effect.
Zaubern Leicht Gemacht 2: Becherspiel und Chop Cup
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Wolfgang Künzel (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 22 December, 2023)
Top alles ok.
Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of The Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Gregg Webb (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 19 December, 2023)
This book by John Nevil Maskelyne with help from at least one expert on crooked gambling is very well written. This may be the best writing in a "magic" book I've yet found. I'm talking about just the writing itself being entertaining, but I have yet to describe the material covered. My personal opinion is that he was aware of German books about cheating at gambling, and felt he could write a similar book in English and at the same time make it more complete.
A good place to start is with Monte on trains and at the race track. Then he covers some bar bets, and gambling that went on in bars, usually with several "sharps" beating an honest bystander or tourist. Odd Man Out is a game based on spinning coins. The coins used by the swindlers were beveled on the edges to make them fall a certain way. "Spinning Coins" were sold at Tannen's at one time. Now I know what Odd Man Out means.
Moving along to cards, and marked cards were covered very well. There were many ways explained. Fading and tinting were interesting ways to mark cards. A very interesting story was recounted from Houdin where a gambler bought a zillion decks of cards, marked them all, rewrapped them and then sold them to casinos. Then he could go and play at the casinos and the cards were already marked. Then, another gambler was going to do the same thing and bought a number of decks from the casino and was going to mark them, but noticed they were already marked! Eventually he figured out who did it. He blackmailed the other guy for a while, but when the marked cards ran out, the first guy left the country and left the 2nd guy holding the bag. The story was very well told.
Devices were explained next. Different kinds of shiners and bugs and hold-outs were explained in great detail, including the Kepplinger Holdout.
Then manipulations of playing cards were explained and this part was not as well explained as in Erdnase. The grips used were antiquated. An overhand shuffle was done from left to right. There was a way to "mix" cards which I would say was like a left hand and right hand action version of a Charlier Shuffle. A way to run up a hand was explained using this shuffle. Cuts and passes were explained but although interesting from a history's perspective, were not as modern as Erdnase, again. But, one thing covered that was not covered in Erdnase was Riffle-stacking.
Next was covered Faro and all the ways that it can be rigged. It seems as if the rough-and-smooth principle came from Faro. The Faro Shuffle also came from Faro. Dealing was done out of an expensive "box" or shoe or boot and due to the cards "roughed" by rubbing them with sand - actually emery cloth, either cards could be dealt as 2 "stuck" together, and allowed out of the box, to go to the discard pile, or 1 card could be dealt. Cards could be marked, or cut at an odd angle and be told by the mechanic. The whole Faro process was rigged in favor of the house.
Next, all the various ways to trim cards with different kinds of cutters, were explained. Other ways to doctor cards were also explained, including the chemical compounds used to create "slick aces" were rendered for our approval. This way, by pushing laterally on the deck, a bigger gap forms at the aces, and here is where you would cut or pass.
Moving from cards to dice, loaded dice and mis spotted dice were explained as well as electric dice, with electro-magnets in the table, what we called "juice-joints". Then manipulations were described using normal dice and dice cups and crooked dice and dice cups were explained, and in relation to many dice games. Realize that Poker or Craps were not popular in England at that time.
Next, a game I don't know, High Ball Poker, was covered which used a leather bottle and balls with numbers on them.
Then Roulette was explained and the many ways attempted to cheat at it explored.
Finally, a catalog of what are referred to as Sporting Goods (really cheating apparatus) was reproduced for the approval of the reader.
By-the-way, at the end of the cards section, Maskelyne explains a way to cheat and not get caught wherein the "sharp" memorizes as many cards as he can at the end of a hand and as the cards are gathered up. Through memory and estimation, he "follows" or tries to follow where these cards would end up after the person shuffling and the person cutting, were done. Skill at this feat was explained as if some people could get good at this way of being a sharp and not getting in trouble.
I would recommend this book on style points, and on historical points.
(Contact)Less is More ACAAN (Italian)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Davide Rubat Remond
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 19 December, 2023)
Ho voluto acquistare quest'opera degli amici Biagio e Joseph per il mistero che si crea durante l'esecuzione dell'effetto. L'ACAAN è ancora una volta affrontato magistralmente dai due autori, grandi esperti dell'argomento. Lo spettatore vive un'esperienza incredibile, trovando la carta scelta che sorprende anche l'illusionista durante le sue prove. Ottimo l'uso del free cut principle.
Packet Trick Treasures
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Peter Bernard (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 16 December, 2023)
Aldo Colombini does an excellent job showing both the complicated moves and the easy ones. I have learned a few moves and a few tricks. It's well worth the cost for this intermediate magician.
Hide and Seek
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by hal barlow (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Saturday 16 December, 2023)
A bit pricey for one card trick, but the trick is a good one. A novel plot well presented, and the instructions are excellent!
(Contact)Less is More ACAAN
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Davide Rubat Remond (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 10 December, 2023)
I wanted to purchase this work by my friend Biagio and Joseph for the mystery that is created during the execution of the effect. The ACAAN is once again masterfully addressed by the two authors, great experts on the topic. The spectator lives an incredible experience, finding the chosen card also surprises the illusionist during his tests. Excellent use of the free cut principle.
Samuel Cox Hooker and his Rising Cards
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Gregg Webb (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 06 December, 2023)
Dr. Wasshuber's book is a fascinating look at the great mystery of how a deck of cards in a houlette which is sometimes out in plain view and other times covered by a glass bell jar and at other times suspended by ribbons, can have called for cards rise from it. At other times the said cards rise above the houlette.
Along with the card rising tricks, there is a teddy-bear's head that nods and shakes the head in response to questions. Then it rises in the air as mysteriously as with the card rises.
Only a handful of people know how the effect was really done. It was not a public show. It was built into a house of Hooker, the scientist and magician, and done to fool magicians. When John Gaughn and Jim Steinmeyer recreated it by permission from the estate, they were sworn to secrecy. We are assured that 2 people were probably backstage assistants - hidden assistants. It is one piece of modern folklore that John Mulholland as a young lad was one of these assistants.
Dr. Wasshuber takes us through the earlier history of the trick. Some versions of rising cards would be actually better for the public showing of this effect, since the show would have to travel from stage to stage and the version built into Hooker's house was not portable. Then Dr. Wasshuber built various working models of the various attempts at recreating parts of the effect. His final conclusions are really that there were new technologies just emerging at the time that helped fool the magicians present in the audience. Another of his hypotheses is that multiple methods were used for the different versions of the basic effect of cards rising based on if a deck was supplied, or borrowed, and cards selected or called for.
One thing that is interesting is the seating arrangement that was strictly controlled so that only certain lines of sight were allowed. All we truly know are from careful notes taken during the earlier versions, and then during the recreation of the show. So, while only a few people really know, I was always interested in this trick, yet didn't even know what went on during the trick, which gave it such a legendary reputation.
Dr. Wasshuber is both a scientist and a magician, and his book is an intriguing look at this mystery, and I'm glad I read it. I'm sure that one of the methods explored is the correct one or close to it, and I learned a lot of earlier methods, and got to watch a puzzle of both a scientific and a magical mystery being dissected.
Propless Cartomancy
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Andrew Baroch (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 06 December, 2023)
Pathetic, insulting swindle.
The Jam Auction
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Steve Vaughn
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 05 December, 2023)
I saw a reference to great talkers and pitches. Two people hit me. First the late, great, Don Driver. The other was Jack Nyberg, the G Whiz Kid. Jack, and I don't know if he is alive, made a grand, a G, in one jam auction, in Vegas I think. Don made this documentary.
It is fascinating. I recall jams at fairs, not to be confused with the British jam auction. You see Jack so his full jam, legit, and discusses his life. Man, I loved this video and miss Don.
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Tommaso Guglielmi
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 November, 2023)
I was sent a review copy of this not too long ago. It’s an excellent card location effect. It isn’t one for the strolling magician, but for those one-on-one situations where you really want to fry a sharp spectator or stump a magician buddy, this is perfect. Choose your venue wisely and this will be a knock-out as a closer. The effect is just as clean as the advert describes it to be, which is a breath of fresh air among today’s adverts.
Behind the Back Location
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Michael Cook (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 November, 2023)
This isn’t a bad trick at all. For the price it’s a steal. I just wish that in the description it would state that a certain something is needed because not everyone has this. I’ve been into card magic for over 25 years and I’ve never owned what’s needed to perform this. A little disappointed but otherwise a great trick. I just wish creators would specify what’s needed to perform certain effects because it sucks to download a trick then after getting it realize you can’t perform it.
Speed Dating
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Ethan Pitt (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 29 November, 2023)
Honestly the best and fastest method out there, quite a bit to learn, but once learnt, gold. I made up my own memory pegs which I encourage, but all in all this is fabulous.
Cold - The Telesthesia Cards
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Steven Collins (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 29 November, 2023)
This is a powerful effect that uses no sleights. It relies solely on your ability to use verbal influence. When performed properly it is a convincing demonstration of telepathy. If you’re not comfortable with that principle, this effect is not for you.
Kings Incognito
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Richard Zarin (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 24 November, 2023)
Stephen Minch may well be my favorite author of magic books. I have not yet worked my way all the way through this, but as always with Stephen, the descriptions are clear and thoughtful. Also, almost all the elements of this routine are within the reach of someone who doesn’t have advanced skills. The other thing that jumps out right away is very thoughtful way that the various phases of this routine flow, with an inner logic and variety for the spectators. Also, although these were set up as lecture notes and referred to the Nash trilogy of books, which I don’t have and have been yearning for for years, there is enough detail here to have a clear sense of what needs to be done. I do expect that at least good chunks of this will be added to my repertoire after I get to spend enough time to think my way through and practice it sufficiently, and also figure out a presentation that suits me (mashes presentation is clearly described, but I’m not about to try to sell myself as a gambling expert).
Dr. Q's Comedy Hypnotic Act
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Andre Magic (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 20 November, 2023)
This PDF is very good quality. I read the book (PDF download) as for the book, I can see value but you have to be gutsy to pull it off. Pre-show communication should be taken care of properly. As I mentioned before, the quality of the PDF is extremely good. As mentioned in my previous reviews, I am so glad that I was referred to this site.