MAC DONALD’S ACES

Manufactured by: Magic Makers (USA)

The greatest value cards in a deck of playing cards are the 4 Aces. Magical effects with the 4 Aces become very popular. One of them is called “MacDonald’s Aces”. The name was probably credited to Mac MacDonald, a one-arm magic pitchman who was selling the trick in the 1960s.

In effect, the performer takes out the 4 Aces from a deck of cards and lays them in a row on the table.

3 other cards are taken from the deck and deposited face downwards onto one of the Aces.  This action is repeated 3 more times with the other 3 Aces. This results in 4 piles of cards on the table. Each pile consists of 3 face down cards on top of a face up Ace.

Now the magic begins. One pile of cards is taken up and slowly counted. Magically the Ace vanishes. The cards are shown on both sides and the Ace has turned into another card.

The next pile is taken up. The Ace in that pile visually changes into another card. Now all the 4 cards are shown on both sides – no Ace is being seen.

The Ace in the third pile is turned over face downwards and placed to one side. When it is turned over face up, it magically transformed into another card. All 4 cards are shown on both sides to be devoid of any Ace.

The Aces must go somewhere. The 4 face down cards in the last pile is slowly turned over one card at a time. They are the 3 missing Aces that have now assembled together with the 4th Ace in the last pile!

You receive the 4 specially printed Aces together with a small vinyl carrying case. A 15 minutes DVD is included in the package. In the video Gerry Griffin performs and then teaches you how to accomplish this effect.

The cards supplied are in poker sized, and can be added to any poker sized deck of playing cards.

There are many presentations for the MacDonald’s Aces. Gerry’s presentation is good because each of the 3 Aces vanishes in a slightly different way, providing variety in the performance.

There are a number of sleights with cards involved in this presentation. They are all basic sleights used with playing cards and are taught well by Gerry. You get to learn the Elmsley Count, the split Emsley Count, the Olram Subtlety, the Flushtration Move, the Double Lift and the Glide.

The gimmicked cards supplied help to make the vanish of each Ace and their susequent assembly into one pile very clean and magical.

The MacDonald’s Aces is a classic of magic, and you get to learn how to perform one of the most visual versions of this classic card trick. You also get to learn those basic sleights with cards that are useful to you when performing card tricks.

Highly Recommended!

BLANKRUPT by Josh Janousky

The Omni Deck was such a lovely concept, it sparked off the Omni coin, the Omni case and even the Omni pen. Josh Janousky has come up with the Omni credit card, which he called “Blankrupt”.

What makes this prop especially effective is that it contains the black magnetic strip whereas all other printing on the credit card vanishes and the credit card becomes a transparent piece of card.

The basic effect is that the performer borrows a credit card. He brushes his fingers over the credit card and all the printing, except the magnetic strip, vanishes and the credit card becomes a transparent piece of acetate card. The performer brings out his wallet and inside the wallet is the borrowed credit card, which he promptly returns to the rightful owner.

You receive not one, but 2 Omni credit cards, and 4 micro-chip stickers to stick onto the Omni credit card if you wish to. When ordering, please state whether you want the thin strip American and Canadian version or the thick strip UK version. You are also given a link to download a video tutorial taught by the creater Josh Janousky.

In the video, Josh shows various effects created by his magician friends using the Omni credit card.

Garett Thomas’ effect is to put a child’s toy silly putty onto one surface of the card. When the card is peeled off the putty, it becomes transparent.

In Brother Gilbert’s presentation, a borrowed credit card is compared with a single bill taken from the performer’s wallet. The bill is brushed against the card and the card becomes transparent. The borrowed card is then found inside the performer’s wallet.

There is a visual effect using a smart phone. The phone is used to take a picture of the borrowed credit card held in the performer’s hand. The card then mysteriously becomes transparent. The photograph of the credit card in the hand is recalled from the phone and the credit card is magically slid off the photograph and returned to its owner.

Josh shows 2 different applications of Blankrupt. In the first effect, he causes the magnetic strip on the back of the credit card to penetrate to the front. In the second efffect, he changes a multi-colour magnetic strip into a black strip.

Josh also demonstrates 2 different handlings of Blankrupt, one by Kosty Kimlat and one by Patrick Kun. Josh teaches his own handling by using a variation of a pass.

An Omni object makes for a very strong magical effect. Blankrupt is performed with a borrowed personal item and this make the trick even more effective.

(Rated 5/5 stars)

HYPER ESP CARDS by Tenyo

Tenyo is specialised in producing clever and precision-made gimmicked magical apparatus.

“Hyper ESP Cards” is a deck of gimmicked ESP cards. It contains the following items:

 25 ESP cards, consisting of 5 of each of circle, cross, wave, square, and star symbols. These cards are secretly marked on their backs.

 5 double-faced cards, with each card having the same symbol on both sides, ie circle/circle, cross/cross, wave/wave, square/square and star/star.

 5 double-backed cards.

 1 double-faced card with circle on one side

and square on the other side.

 Card case to contain the cards.

 Small black ungimmicked prediction

envelope.

These items are what a mentalist desires in a gimmicked deck of ESP cards.

What makes the Tenyo “Hyper ESP Cards” different from other gimmicked ESP deck of cards is the special design on the backs of the cards. It is a simple design consisting of small dots uniformly spaced out. It does not look possible for such a design to contain secret markings. Yet, when you know how to look at the backs, you can tell which card is the circle, the cross, the wave, the square and the star.

You receive the deck of ESP cards, the small prediction envelope and a link to download 14 pages of printed instructions written in the English language by Richard Kaufman and Yukishige Kadoya. The instructions provide 6 effects. A brief description of each of the effects are:

1. X-Ray Vision – A spectator mixes the 5 different ESP cards and places one face downwards on the table. Simply by placing his open palm above the card, the performer can sense the correct symbol of this card. To prove that the performer is not reading the back of the card, another card is taken and placed inside the black envelope. Again, the performer can sense the symbol of this card.

2. ESP Symbol Prediction – 3 different ESP cards are placed face upwards on the table. A spectator freely selects one symbol. The choice of the spectator has been predicted in advance.

3. Divining a Chosen Symbol with Mind Reading – 2 spectators each freely chooses a card from an ESP deck. The performer can divine the identity of each card.

4. ESP Swindle – 10 ESP cards are used. A spectator decides how to mix up the order of these cards. Despite the random mixing, the full order of the 10 cards is shown printed on the back of the card case.

5. ESP Psychic – A spectator and the performer each takes 5 ESP cards behind their backs and mixes the cards. The performer takes one card and places it face downwards on the table. The performer influences the spectator to read his mind and places one of her cards face downwards onto the performer’s card. This procedure continues 3 more times – each time the performer places his card first before the spectator. One card is left with each person. Again the performer places his card first. But this time he places it face upwards, revealing the identity of his final card. The spectator turns her last card face upwards, and this matches the last card from the performer. Each of the other 4 pairs of cards are turned face upwards one pair at a time to show that they all match perfectly.

6. ESP Telekinetics – A set of 5 ESP cards facing upwards is mixed with another set of 5 ESP cards facing downwards. A spectator brings the packet of 10 cards underneath the table. She further mixes the cards unseen, including turning some small packets of cards over to further mix them in a face-up and face-down manner. When she is satisfied, she brings out the cards and spread them onto the table. The number as well as the actual content of the face-up cards match a prediction placed on the table before the performance.

Every performing mentalist will want a set of gimmicked ESP cards such as this set. It enables them to perform endless ESP effects. It will be difficult to find another set of gimmicked ESP cards that can compare with Tenyo’s “Hyper ESP Cards” in terms of price, the quality of the cards, and the secret marking on the backs.

The back design is the brain-child of both Toru Suzuki and So Sato. It may take a little while for you to get used to reading the markings on the back. Once you get the knack of it, you can use these cards to perform impossible ESP effects because the audience will not suspect you of reading the backs of the cards. They can even examine the cards themselves and will be none the wiser.

Although you may have your own ESP routines to perform, each of the 6 effects described in the instructions are good and strong tricks on their own. You may want to include any or all of them in your performing repertoire.

(Rated 5/5 stars)

ONE NIGHT (YOU CAN’T) STAND

As you can guess from the title as well as from the illustration on the packaging of the product, this effect is meant for the men at the bar.

The most well-known of such effect are “A Night Out With The Girls” and “Every Inch A Lady”. Both tricks are produced by Tony Curtis Magic.

They are packet card tricks where a spectator chooses one of several good- looking ladies only to find that he has landed on an old and ugly lady.

Here is the effect of “One Night (You Can’t) Stand”. The performer shows the photographs of 6 beautiful ladies from the imaginary dating agency “flirt-4-fun.com”. 

A spectator freely chooses any one of these girls. This card is placed to one side on the table. The other 5 cards can be shown to be the other 5 ladies he did not pick. When he looks at his chosen date, he is taken aback at her face. It looks ugly as well as weird and somewhat disturbing! You have to see the picture to appreciate what is meant here.

You receive a set of the specially printed cards, and a small wallet to keep them in. You also get a link to download a 4-page printed instructions and a tutorial video. The cards are nicely printed and are slightly larger than poker-sized cards. Card- Shark calls this parlour-sized cards.

This effect is different from the 2 effects from Tony Curtis Magic in many ways. The photos are of beautiful ladies such as those to be expected from a dating agency. The pictures from Tony Curtis show semi-nude ladies, and can be performed only on certain occasions. The chosen card of the Tony Curtis’ tricks show an ugly lady. In this effect, the selected card depicts the chosen lady but she now looks odd and weird and a little disturbing. This adds to the fun and mystery of the effect. Tony Curtis’ tricks involve a force whereas in this effect, the spectator gets a free choice of one of the 6 girls. Therefore, the trick can be repeated with the selection being a different lady, but the performer may not wish to do that.

There is a bonus trick where you can print the names of each lady on the back of each card. You can then predict in advance the exact name of the date to be selected by your spectator.

This is a great effect which packs small and plays big. The selected lady really looks weird, and nobody can see this coming until at the end.

(Rated 5/5 stars)

THE MINDPOD

Manufactured by: Luis de Matos (Spain)

To purchase or reserve the product(s), read the conditions above.

“The Mindpod” is a mental effect that involves the popular Apple iPod and digital music.

A spectator is shown 2 sets of poker- sized cards. Each set containes 10 cards. The backs of one set show a black colour iPod and the backs of the other set of cards depict a white colour iPod. The face of each card has a list of the titles of 10 popular songs. Each of the 10 cards in a set contains 10 different songs. The spectator can check that each set of 10 cards contains a total of 100 different song titles. The same 100 song titles are

  - 20 -also found on the faces of the other set of cards, also with each card depicting 10 song titles – however, the distribution of the 100 songs is totally different from that of the other set of cards.

A spectator decides which set of cards she wants. Let us assume she wants the black iPod cards. The performer then takes the set of white iPod cards. Both the spectator and the performer shuffle their packet of cards thoroughly.

The spectator looks through her set of 10 cards and chooses her favourite song from among the 100 song titles. She takes the card from her set that contains the title of her favourite song and places this card face downwards on the table. At no time does she show the faces of any of her cards.

The performer asks the spectator to take his set of 10 cards and find the card that contains the title of her favourite song. The spectator presses on the “play” button of the iPod depicted on this card and mentally (not audibly) sings the tune of her favourite song in her mind. The performer is instantly able to name the title of the spectator’s thought-of song!

The spectator does not say a word to the performer or the audience – she has a free choice of any one of the 100 songs – no cards are being turned face upwards – and there is no memory work involved. It seems there is no way the performer can have the slightest clue what song was being chosen. The method for accomplishing this effect is quite creative, and is totally self-working, allowing you to concentrate on your presentation.

You receive the 2 sets of 10 cards and an instructional DVD. The cards are nicely printed on thick card stock and will last for a long time if they are carefully handled and properly stored.

In the video, the creator Joaquin Kotkin performs and explains The Mindpod. He gives various ways of performing the effect:

 The spectator silently sings her chosen in her head and the performer names the

song title.

 Instead of naming the song title, the performer can also sings or hums the

selected tune.

 The 2 ear pieces of an iPod can be connected to a clip. The clip can be

connected to the chosen card and the performer can “hear” and then sings the

selected tune.

 The performer can get his friend to name or sing the selected song.

 A prepared Spotify playlist can be downloaded onto your smart phone and you

can play the thought-of song on your iphone.

The Mindpod plays equally well in close-up or parlour performances. The effect involves iPods and popular music and immediately attracts much attention from the audience.

Highly Recommended!

SIGNING by Way & Himitsu

“Signing” is a cute paddle trick.

A small road sign on a pedestal is displayed. The sign shows an arrow pointing upwards. It probably indicates straight road ahead. The sign is shown on both sides.

The performer flicks the sign with his fingers of one hand. Magically, the straight arrow becomes a curved arrow. And the pole on which the road sign is fixed on magically becpmes bent.

The performer removes the pole from the triangular road sign to show that it is indeed bent at the top end.

This is not right. The sign is put back onto the bent pole. With a magical gesture, the pole becomes straight but the sign remains a curved arrow. The sign can be shown to be the same on both sides. This is the correct way of displaying a curved road ahead sign.

You receive 3 pieces of the props: the triangular road sign, the long plastic pole, and the pedestal. You also get a link to a video tutorial.

The road sign and the bent pole work on a couple of clever optical principles. If you can perform the paddle move, you can perform this cute effect that never fails to solicit a smile from the sudience.

(Rated 5/5 stars)