Voyeur
Romanos
Titanas
In the fairest way, while your back is turned, the spectator selects a card. The card is returned to the deck and the deck is placed inside the card case. Only then the magician turns his head and instantly knows the identity of the card.
- No electronics
- No Force
- No Magnets
- No Rough and smooth
- No Markings
- No memorized or stack deck
Very innocent looking gimmick and instant reset. Immediately repeatable with different cards.
The special deck provided makes this effect easy to do.
Comes with a precision made gimmick and a DVD.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Actually the instruction part is just over 5.5 minutes and everything else is just filler - a trailer and a credits roll at the end.
The deck cannot be examined, the card case really cannot be examined but it *might* be able to be held by a spectator for a few minutes.
Does the method work? Sure it does. Is it clever? Maybe. Can the deck be used for anything else but this effect? Technically, yes - if you can do an effect with the 26 normal cards in it because the other 26 are gaffed. Other than that, this is a one-trick pony of a deck. If you are going to the trouble of carrying this deck around just to do the main effect, which can be accomplished with a completely normal deck and card case (borrowed if you like) using a lifetime-worth of other published methods, then you need to go back and read some good magic books or watch better DVDs.
The box does its job, but I will guarantee you that after about 10 performances (if that many at all), the box gimmick will start to get loose. This does not interfere with its working but it will happen.
The ad copy is mostly accurate but the part where it says that "your back is turned" is absolutely false. Only your head is turned and you cannot let laymen handle the deck - you have to do it the whole way through from beginning to end. The mention of "No electronics" and "No Magnets" are, while true, just absurd when referring to a 'pick a card' effect. Talk about a way to take something that is inherently simple and render it profoundly convoluted...
For $35/USD you can buy a number of great books or DVDs that teach you more than one way of accomplishing this effect, all of them using a normal deck and a normal case.
If I could give less than 1/2 of a star, I would. Use the money to buy any of the much better books/DVDs for this kind of effect from performers such as Ed Marlo, Max Maven or Kenton Knepper, among many others.
(Top ▲)
This is joke, right? That's the questions I kept asking myself while I was watching the DVD. I really was having a hard time believing that someone would put this on the market. For your $35 bucks you get an extremely gaffed deck that cannot be examined . . . along with a gaffed card box, that might (but probably not) be examinable, 8 minutes and 41 seconds long instructional DVD. Yes; I timed it. By the way, included in that 8 minutes and 41 seconds is a 2 minute and 8 second long teaser for the product that you already purchased. Also, you get 50 seconds of credits rolling at the end. So of the 8 minutes and 41 seconds, nearly a full 3 minutes is credits and trailers, leaving you with just over five and half minutes of "useful" DVD time.
"Useful" is very subjective here. First, this deck can only do one trick . . . "you pick a card, and I'll tell you what it is." Um . . . I can do that with a borrowed deck. Oh . . . and did I mention that half of the cards are totally gaffed and therefore cannot be chosen by the spectator. So the spectator doesn't even have the freedom of picking ANY card like they would with a borrowed deck.
Further, The ad copy says, "In the fairest way, while your back is turned, the spectator selects a card." . . . nope . . . your head is turned - not your back, and you still have to handle the deck. In my mind, if it were "the fairest way," the spectator would be able to handle the deck or use their own deck. This is one of those deals where you'll likely fool your magician friends for a few seconds until they say, "let me see the deck." If you're even a half way decent performer, you can accomplish the exact same effect with a completely normal, borrowed, shuffled deck of cards.
This is the effect that everyone knows . . . the spectator picks a card and the magician tells him what it is. Sure the method is sneaky, but so are the the 10,000 other ways that this has been written up in as many magic books. Plus you're not stuck carrying around an extra deck that can't do anything else but one effect. Amongst the ad copy you'll find these "selling points:"
- No Force
- No Magnets
- No Markings
- No Memorized Deck
- No Stacked Deck
Magnets? Really . . . for a pick a card trick!?
As for the other things listed, No Force, No Marked Decks, No Memorized Decks, No Stacked Decks . . . it's too bad it doesn't use any of those because all of those are superior methods to the one you'll waste your $35 bucks on if you get this effect. Everyone one of those methods can be examined, handled by a spectator and be used for thousands of other things.
Final Verdict:
half star with a Stone Status of total rubble.