talkmagic.co.uk

The Effect

This is a utility prop that can be used for literally countless effects. For your money you get a very well made 10p shell [edited by modes] making it possible to produce and vanish a coin under impossible conditions.

Classic uses of this prop are Coins Thru Table and Coins Across/Hopping Half. I do a coins across routine like this: 3 borrowed coins are show and both hands shown to be otherwise empty. The 3 coins are placed openly in the left hand and both hands are closed to fists and kept well apart. After some magical shaking they are opened. Now only 2 coins are in the left and 1 is in the right. Another coin is moved in a similar way. As a finale two coins are clearly placed in the spec’s hand which is closed. The final coin is vanished. When the spec’s hand is opened I reach into their palm with an obviously empty hand and spread the coins on their palm to show there are now 3.

The shell makes this impossible effect possible and relatively easy. You need to learn some sleights to add and remove the shell invisibly. You need to be able to palm coins OK. You need to learn the moves in such a way as to eliminate or cover “talking” – this is the hardest bit IMO. Bobo teaches the moves and some routines.


Cost
£25 from Alakazam (http://alakazam.co.uk/acatalog/Alakazam ... _6_41.html)



Difficulty – 3-5 but it’s a utility prop.
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)



Review
A coin shell is fundamentally ESSENTIAL gimmick for any coin worker. A UK expanded shell allows you to work with normal, UK BORROWED coins which really adds to the effects. No curious half-dollars.

Overall
What can one say. It looks perfectly like a 10p. It works well. So 10/10. Pretty pricey though but that’s a good thing since it may keep the casual buyer away.

Yeah, i agree they are a very handy prop to carry round with you. There are many routines possible with one of these little beautys. The 1 prob is that they are expensive for what they are, although the workmanship that goes into them justifies the price. My advice...learn some good sleights then progress onto shells...
Sam

typical uk priceing, american version £17-20 uk version £25 and its tiny like a 10p well der.
american coins are big and foriegn and therfore have strange properties, just my opinion after all i have a 10p muskateer coin which i'd trade in for the american version in a heartbeet.

oh yes, nice one neil i am looking for one of these to buy second hand i will pay £15 for one. I am just getting into coins just waiting on book shop to get my book in. thanks for writing this review i needed it lol. what are other peoples opinions on these coins. like what about there quality??

Perhaps not too wise to describe exactly what a shell is on a forum any lay person could look at. Most magicians already know what a shell is, perhaps would have been better to simply describe the quality of manufacture and for newbies that it is a great utility device for coin workers.

Also, if you believe it enables you to borrow coins, at some point you will be unpleasantly surprised. Like coins DO vary fractionally in size, crazy as it sounds. You are best using your own coins that you know are suitable.

Paul.

Neil mate, good review.

PHmagic wrote:Perhaps not too wise to describe exactly what a shell is on a forum any lay person could look at. Most magicians already know what a shell is, perhaps would have been better to simply describe the quality of manufacture and for newbies that it is a great utility device for coin workers.

I don't think it's that important in this particular case, Paul. Details of a shell can be picked up at a variety of online shops... emagictricks.co.uk, Merchant of Magic and Penguinmagic.co.uk to name but only three.

A keen laymen can pick up this kind of factual information from loads of different sources.

Like I said Neil, good review.

Zack wrote:I don't think it's that important in this particular case, Paul. Details of a shell can be picked up at a variety of online shops...

ah yes, but the principle still rings true. No matter how trivial a gimmck may seem it's still our responsibility not to reveal its workings here. That's what the restricted areas are for

Zack wrote:Neil mate, good review.

PHmagic wrote:Perhaps not too wise to describe exactly what a shell is on a forum any lay person could look at. Most magicians already know what a shell is, perhaps would have been better to simply describe the quality of manufacture and for newbies that it is a great utility device for coin workers.

I don't think it's that important in this particular case, Paul. Details of a shell can be picked up at a variety of online shops... emagictricks.co.uk, Merchant of Magic and Penguinmagic.co.uk to name but only three.

A keen laymen can pick up this kind of factual information from loads of different sources.

Like I said Neil, good review.

But why make the secrets even easier to obtain? In this case there really is no need to do so. As for the other sources, well...

Magic Discoman said:
"typical uk priceing, american version £17-20 uk version £25 and its tiny like a 10p well der.
american coins are big and foriegn and therfore have strange properties, just .."

One can obtain a £2 version in the UK which is big enough. I have one I got from Peter Crush at Presto Magic. Also British made versions tend to be better. If you'd played with/seen both, you'd know. But it's horses for courses and occasionally a smaller one might be advantageous. At one time I sold a 2p version (and used one for a particular routine).

Paul.

uk versions of coin tricks are good but tend to be 10 or 20% more expensive even when theres no extra work needed when compared like for like, but thats just rip off briton in my own opinion.

i have a old english penny shell which i used to use quite often, this being of the same quality as an american half and around the same size and surpriseingly the same price give or take as its american equivalent.

my point being that uk currency is small and is getting smaller, thats why we are forced to use bigger foriegn coins.
i meen produceing ten 10p's from your hand isn't as impressive as doing the same with ten halfs but requires equal amount of skill.

£2 and £5 coins are great and combined with shells at a massive price are hard to beat but they are thick little beasties and hard to manipulate and hide with other coins, that said there bi-colour designs make for some fun coin work.

phmagic wrote:Perhaps not too wise to describe exactly what a shell is on a forum any lay person could look at

I tend to agree and have consequentally made a minor edit to the original post. To be honest it still doesn't sit that easy with me as the name alone is a bit of a giveaway, however I feel it was still a useful reveiw, and has certainly provoked discussion which can never be a bad thing...

Discussing coin shells does undoubtedly add to the general body of exposure, but has to be put in perspective. There are many other, more popular sites around (like The Magic Cafe) where these things are discussed widely. Additionally, virtually every online magic shop mentions them, their applications and often have pictures of them. There are 100's of such shops. This has been happening for some time, yet I've not had anyone suspect a thing. So I wonder how much of a problem reviews and sites like this are? Obviously it's not an ideal situation.

IMO,the big problems are TV exposure like the Masked Magician and online magic shops. The shops have a double effect in that they not only reveal virtually every common gimmick and their applications but also sell them to anyone and so produce a whole raft of people doing tricks badly and exposing secrets.

If you are genuinely concerned, and I'm sure you are, then you should seriously consider heavily editing nearly all the reviews you hold on this site and having strict rules on review format. Take the reviews of Scotch and Soda for example - the actual fine points of the mechanics are not revealed but they are not actually important andyway. The effect is described in detail and the fact that gimmicked coins are used is stated. So anyone with an interest will now know that the trick they saw last night in the restaurant is done with gimmicked coins - what more does the person need to know? The same goes for Colour Deception and nearly all the gimmicked product reviews. Book Test reviews are very dodgy if they introduce the idea of gaffed books.

Surely only by severely restricting reviews to opinions on difficulty, useability, design, quality and price can one not expose something. As soon as you discuss the effect in detail then you give away that a gaff is used.

As a point of discussion - I have just bought a new wallet for CTW which I'd be happy to review. How would one review that without exposing the one and only important thing about CTW - that being that a special CTW wallet is how the effect is done?

How would one review that without exposing the one and only important thing about CTW - that being that a special CTW wallet is how the effect is done?

You could describe how it looks and feels, if it could be used as a normal everyday wallet, you could compare it to other similar CTW wallets. You could describe how easy it is to use. There are many ways a review could be made without giving too much away.

I agree that any site that talks about magic is going to give something away to the casual browser that is looking for secrets, we just have to do our best not to make it too easy for them.

I do feel however, that forums like this are on the whole are very useful to the magic community.

I do an effect where a marked coin vanishes from their own hand and appears in a previously empty wallet. It goes down well and you can probably guess how its done.