Reviews: Read What Others Are Saying: page 22
169 ★★★★★ reviews
120 ★★★★★ reviews
78 ★★★★★ reviews
122 ★★★★★ reviews
Souvenirs d'Italie
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Tony Arthur (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 11 January, 2022)
Unfortunately, I am very disappointed with this effect.
While it is based on an interesting mathematical principle, the attempt to turn it into a magic trick is in my opinion terrible, and nothing that could be used in any kind of real environment. It is far too procedural to be entertaining, and in my opinion, would never produce anything like the audience reaction that the advert suggests.
More than that, without giving away the method, the combination of the names on the postcards, the way the postcards are arranged beforehand, the nature of the instructions, and the precise and exact manner in which they are delivered would make any audience scream "mathematical principle in play here".
If that weren't enough, the instructions are so exact and have to be followed while your back is turned, which means that the spectator could very easily make a mistake. Since you would have no way of knowing they'd got something wrong, there would be no way for you to recover and your big reveal would be totally wrong.
I therefore recommend against getting this effect.
I do however strongly recommend continuing to use this site, as I wrote a more detailed version (including my observations on the method) of this review to Chris Wasshuber after I bought the effect, and as part of his reply he said "I would also like to ask you to share your opinion in a review of the product. This would help others better understand if this is the right product for them or not. Also star-rating your purchases would be a great way to help weed out the good from the bad." This would suggest that Chris is a trustworthy seller who is concerned to make sure that his customers buy things that are right for them, rather than just wanting to sell things to us, and that's a rare thing in this internet world!
Keeping Control
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Mach (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 11 January, 2022)
I'm a serious amateur intermediate magician. I already did some shows and close-up.
From my experience, I must say that all that Mark Leveridge wrote, is true. He thought about all the details and gives practical advice.
I recommend this booklet at least to all the hobbyist magicians, but I think it can also be useful to some professional magicians.
I think that even you are a hobbyist, you must put on your magic as a professional, and for that, this booklet will help you. I'm sure of that.
Interactive Matrix Formula
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by samuel thielman (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 09 January, 2022)
Nice trick, but there's no formula. Just a set of directions to be used to move around the matrix during the trick. I bought this looking for an actual explanation of how the trick works.
Genii Volume 17 (Sep 1952 - Aug 1953)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by John Lynch (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 09 January, 2022)
Obviously magic from the past influences the effects and illusions we see today. These archived magazines, which provide a view of the past methods are invaluable.
More Magic
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by John Lynch (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 09 January, 2022)
Finding the book, available digital, has complemented receiving "Modern Magic", a gift from my son. Since many of Prof. Hoffman's books are scarce and highly priced, finding them on Lybrary.com is a big deal for me.
The Dai Vernon Book of Magic
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Samuel Kugler (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 09 January, 2022)
One of the best magic books out there - for only 20$. You get one of the best coin routines (Chinese Classic, a Coins through table effect), a great card stab (which you can perform standing or sitting) by the great Nate Leipzig, the best C&B routine (in my opinion) and many more. And the chapter 'Vernon Touch' is probably worth the 20$ alone. Even if you don't perform one single effect from this book (but seriously, why would you do this?), to read the thoughts of the great Professor is inspiring and fascinating. He was a true artist!
So don't read this comment written in bad English - buy this book by the great Professor!
Shank Shuffle
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Marc Rehula (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 09 January, 2022)
There are two demo videos, totaling 20 seconds. The explanation is one exposed view video, totaling 23 seconds. The pdf contains two pages of basic instructions. If you're looking for tips and subtleties - as I was - you won't find any.
Everybody's Fooled
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Harry Damareck (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 06 January, 2022)
As a hobbyist not a professional I always look for new things to entertain my friends and family. This is a perfect trick for that. They have no clue. I always borrow a deck because if I use my own it looks like an obviously marked deck trick.
Deluxe Three Card Monte
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Robert McGee (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 December, 2021)
I have been studying card and close-up magic since 1962. I have bought several things over the past few years from Lybrary.com and been very satisfied. Unfortunately, I must give a very negative review to this purchase. It is one page describing a very basic routine and a couple of standard endings. This is the only time I bought something from Lybrary.com and felt ripped off. If I could rate it zero stars that would be too high.
Victory Bouquet
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by David Nethery
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 December, 2021)
An essential reference for making spring flowers. This booklet covers Martineau's method of making a large bouquet (complete with long stems) of spring flowers, but this book would also be enormously useful to anyone wanting to make individual spring flowers for the traditional Flowers from Paper Cone production. Martineau gives you precise instructions, with very clear illustrations, on how to make the flowers. If you know Martineau's illustrations from the Rice Encyclopedia of Silk Magic then you will know how precise his drawings are.
Spring Flowers have really become a do-it-yourself project for anyone who wants decent-looking blooms that halfway resemble real flowers (from a distance). These are not difficult to make once you understand the proportions and the steps for constructing them, but they are very time consuming to produce (and to make a decent looking production you need at least 50) so the days of purchasing good looking pre-made spring flowers from a magic dealer have passed. You'll have to rely on your own craftiness and the investment of your own time. Almost all of the pre-made spring flowers you can obtain from a magic supplier these days are made cheaply in India and they don't look very good, most don't even attempt to look like real flowers (the worst offenders being the "flowers" that are made from metallic-looking mylar. What those are intended to resemble I have no idea, but they sure don't look like flowers.) By combining the construction techniques that Martineau covers (either for individual blooms or a whole bouquet with long stems) along with adding some tasteful stippling on the inner part of the flowers and stippling along the outer edges of the flowers using colored Sharpie markers, or PrismaColor or Copic Markers, you can increase the resemblance of the blooms to real flowers (you can also brush on colored dye with a slightly wet watercolor brush on the edges of the blooms which can yield some interesting color bleed gradients --- experiment!) Another good option is to obtain some of the artificial flowers made from thin fabric at a craft store and use those to construct your spring flowers, instead of using the traditional tissue paper. The fabric flowers will tend to be a bit thicker than the paper flowers so that's something to consider in terms of the size of the load, but the fabric flowers (and green leaves) look realistic from a very short distance.
One bit of advice that is often forgotten when using spring flowers is the ratio of green leaves to colored blooms: it should be a ratio of 50 - 50, or some say 60 - 40 (that is for every 4 colored blossoms you would include 6 all green, or at least for every 5 colored blooms include 5 all green). Also, it tends to look better to have each bouquet or batch of spring flowers produced to be all one color, for example, all-white blooms, or all pink, or all red, all yellow, instead of mixing in multiple colors like red, yellow, purple, orange, blue, white, green. Or vary it by having mostly white blooms, but a few pink dropped in the mix. (again, keeping the proportion of all green leaves higher than the number of colored blooms) If you want to see how good this can look search out a video of French magician Dani Lary performing his act "The Magical Gardener".
Bending Minds 1
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Paul Critelli (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 30 December, 2021)
The instruction booklet is for me, in a word, terrible. The translation is often quite poor, and the continuity and explanation of even the basic system and then what the "example" is supposed to be showing are misleading, confusing, and left me wondering how anyone without some basic knowledge of the binary system could ever follow this. Although I would never claim to be able to do anything that the authors may be able to accomplish on their lunch breaks, the binary system is not difficult even for me to grasp. However, their explanation and use of it boggles the mind of someone who does have a Ph.D. in psychology, who has read and performed Magic for 40 years, and who owns 7000 books on Magic. Maybe it was the time of the year - month - week - day, but several readings of that first chapter (which I did not think I would need to do) still left me quite confused and wondering if parts had been left out. I suspect there were no readings and "screenings" by people who did not have an extensive history with several - perhaps all - of the topics the authors are trying (so it is assumed . . . ?) to teach. Certainly, there was no "native speaker" that did go over the translation, and following the hodgepodge of partial effect and methods and expectations left me quite unamused. I did get volumes 1 and 2, but the adoption of 3 is in serious jeopardy. I will take yet another (my fifth) stab at trying to understand the words on the page, and I do NOT expect any sort of "push button" easy-peasy Magic, but I do expect clear and direct communication. This is - definitely not astrophysics, but the authors could definitely take some lessons from Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson in communicating . . . anything.
Impossible Memory
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Alton Knight (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 15 December, 2021)
Very easy to do, extremely clever. Uses a borrowed deck that can be shuffled by the spectator. Kudos Joseph B!
Balloon Shows
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Kies (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Wednesday 15 December, 2021)
Deeply disappointed. You will not learn much about a balloon show but how to teach the kids how they can make a balloon dog.
Victory Cartons
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Jose Luis Perandones Colino (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 10 December, 2021)
A great cardboard illusion. 7-page ebook with manufacturing and production drawings, very clear and simple. Easy to carry, easy to assemble, easy to perform, a great illusion, and free, what more could you ask for.
The Expert MC Toolkit & Resource Manual
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by paul nightingale (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 09 December, 2021)
Great, condensed reference for Master of ceremonies. It has a wonderful balance of information and direct layout.
Irresistible Close-Up Magic
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Bill Palmer (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 05 December, 2021)
I've done close-up magic for more than 60 years, under every working condition imaginable, and for audiences of every level of social standing, from drunk rednecks to English royalty. This is the kind of magic that will make you a more versatile performer.
MORE: Multiple Outs Reimagined
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Christian Mach (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 03 December, 2021)
Not a new idea (or perhaps new with blank business cards). The suggested applications are too mathematical and not very interesting for me.
Circlet
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by John Scialli (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 02 December, 2021)
Excellent teaching video. Looks like the trailer here. Other sites have slightly different trailers which have different color scheme. Actual video is with a black shirt against yellow background. The teaching is text only; large, kept on view for a good while. All steps are repeated, some action is stopped. Requires band type ring about 1 size too big and some PRYM. Minimal DIY. Sleight is slight, requiring as much dexterity as you need to use with a break-away wand (although no mechanics in common). Highly recommended!
Deluxe Three Card Monte
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Colin Massey (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Thursday 02 December, 2021)
Excellent routine and explained very well.
The Sphinx Volume 49 (Mar 1950 - Feb 1951)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Brad Morgan (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 30 November, 2021)
So many tricks and articles here it's hard to beat this deal. It's an awesome old magic magazine that's hard to find. For reference purposes, this is the way to go. Great Quality and easy to find what you are looking for. I was researching for a specific mention of a trick and needed this resource to complete my findings. It was an easy transaction at a great price. The pages are clear and easy to navigate.
The Gen Volume 18 (1962)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Brad Morgan (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 30 November, 2021)
It's an awesome old magic magazine that's hard to find. For reference purposes, this is the way to go. Great Quality and easy to find what you are looking for. I was researching for a specific mention of a trick and needed this resource to complete my findings. It was an easy transaction at a great price. The pages are clear and easy to navigate.
The Magic Wand Volume 38 (1949)
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Brad Morgan (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 30 November, 2021)
Great Quality and easy to find what you are looking for. I was researching for a specific mention of a trick and needed this resource to complete my findings. It was an easy transaction at a great price. The pages are clear and easy to navigate.
Centermental
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Larry Brodahl (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 21 November, 2021)
Anything by J.G.Thompson is worth a read. In this manuscript, he has some very clever ideas (from credited sources) on ways to read the center tear, some nice presentational ideas. Just good stuff.
Big Ring on String
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Larry Brodahl (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 21 November, 2021)
Fairly standard set of moves described competently. The one thing I do like is that there are not any of the thread/unthread/twisty moves that don't actually look magical.
Best Tricks with Slates
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Larry Brodahl (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 21 November, 2021)
Interesting read and has several methods of getting writing on a slate without flaps or gimmicks.