To be completely honest I was expecting these cups to be much better than the ones that I recieved and I felt a little scammed. I have been doing cups and balls for a long time and I own the Johnson cups and wanted a new set of cups that I could throw around, but were still of good quality. These are nice cups, but I could have bought the same ones elsewhere (local magic shop or online) for about half the price I paid for these. I am just glad that I got a bunch of free stuff with them which helped make up for the high price tag. My suggestion: look around for some cheaper cups that are of the same quality...you can even find brass ones for much less than these.

The Penguin Copper Cups are a FANTASTIC value! They're not only beautiful, they're heavy, strong and VERY well balanced. I don't mean they're too heavy, I mean they're substantial enough to handle well, not like the cheap aluminum ones we often buy to get started.

The bonus DVD by Carl Andrews was an unexpected plus. He has a nice routine worth viewing, even if you don't adopt it as your own.

The furnished balls seemed too small at first, but, as a group, they fit so well on top I use them all the time now. Even if you prefer larger balls you'll love these for practice - using them is like swinging a weighted bat before going up to the plate.

The inside is unfinished but the dull apearance prevents "flashing. If you don't like the copper as it tarnishes, use Turtle wax to seal them. For a beautiful, even patina clean them well with lemon or ketchup or whatever to strip them, then bake them in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. Allow them to cool. Pick 'em up with CLEAN hands and wax them to seal finish. Wax again as needed (LIGHTLY!)

HAVE fun and paractice, practice, practice!

These cups are great to use, I take them out of thier pouch and people tell me they look good. The two major problems I have with these cups are:

1. They are far too expensive, I got a free DVD with them but I still think that I didnt get much bang for my buck.

2. They are such a pain in the neck to keep shiny, I practiced for a couple of hours straight when I got them, I put them in the pouch and when i took them out the next day they were all tarnished and faded!

Other than those two reasons I like these cups, I think that if I ever need another set I'll do some shopping around before I spend nearly a hundred bucks on cups again.

To be honest these cups are a little less than the hype that has been created. They are not the worst cups I have used, but for the price they leave a bit to be desired. I have handled copper cups much smaller that felt more substantial. You could find better cups for less and still have enough money to buy a dozen thumbtips.

While on the whole they're good quality cups, I find that two of my cups nest too tightly, meaning they have a tendency to "stick" together. For the most part this doesn't matter, but for the "ball passing through the cup" move (sorry - I don't know the correct title) it's a problem.

Perhaps I was unlucky with my set and most sets are fine.

Aside from this though, they're decent basic cups, though they do also tarnish like crazy (as has been said already).

These are truly wonderful cups, especially this 2nd generation of them. They are flawless!

I've always wanted some premium copper cups, but with prices at 300 dollars and above (sometimes WAY above!) I figured I'd never have any.

Thanks to Penguin Magic, we all can have beautiful cups at an incredible low price. I have seen some of those 300 dollar cups that are not any better than these.

These cups have a little secret too, they SING!

Set your Penguin cups on a close-up mat, mouth end up give them a tap with a metal tipped wand. What an amazing voice they have. That will add another one of the 5 senses to those witnessing a cups and balls performance.

3 cheers for Penguin Magic. Beautiful cups for the rest of us! I will no longer be envious of all those expensive cups I see.

Thank You.

PS: The balls I got with my cups are too dinky to use. That is my only complaint. They should come with 7/8 inch balls.

Now I love the cups and balls, its a classic and no magician should be without a set.

The reason for the three stars is simple: You can't fit much of a final load in them. Tangerines and small lemons if you're lucky.

The size I was after is large oranges and apples, but not these. I would recommend you look around before you buy a set of Penguin Cups. I can't help but feel that the Hype given to the cups in the video conned me a little bit.

I bought these for a first set of copper cups for busking, to see how I like them. After spending a day using them along with my new buskers' pouch from theambitiouscard, I was pleased with the way these cups handles lacrosse balls as a final load. They sound nice and are fun to use, but they were not quite touch enough for me. After a day and a couple drops on Hollywood's hard floor, I found a single dent. It doesn't affect performance, but considering I only used it a day, I hoped for a little more durability. Other than that, it's na excellent cup to start with.

This is a great set.I use them all the time.The are nice and heavy,their strong,they will last forever.

I know a lot of this was covered in other reviews but I want to give you a brand new review of these cups. I ordered these brand new (From Israel) and was looking forward to getting them. I had read and watched all the reviews and was hoping I would not be victim to the same as everyone else but that was quickly set to rest. I received them and opened the shipping box to find them as expected as if they arrived directly from penguin. I even compared them to other unboxing vids on the Internet so I knew these were actually brand new. The paper was also still wrapped around all the cups. So what did I find? Well here we go.

1- The cups already had several dark spots on the outside of them from what appears to be handling during production / packaging at the manufacturing facility.

2- One of the cups had 2 small scratches on them along the beads. I decided to check the interior of the other cups for burrs which may have caused this but there was nothing. This also concerns me that along the line these cups will not hold up to normal wear and tear as some have talked about in reviews of these cups.

3- The inside of the cups look horrible. Dull, rough, green patina already forming. Just really ugly.

4- The balls that came with them (IMO) are to small to easily accommodate some advanced moves smoothly. Such as a stacking move where no balls are seen. Also you get no final loads. I would up getting 1" manipulation balls and 2 1/2 " final loads from another vendor. And 3 1" balls will still stack under 1 cup if you are careful.

5- I'm guessing I will also need to clean and seal these cups if I do not want them to wind up tarnishing like regular copper items. Not in the mood o use "green" cups.

6- The cups already feel slightly dented right out of the box. They are not smooth as a new set of cups should be.

On the positive side I do like the weight and feel. At least I did not experience any stacking issues that others mentioned in their reviews. So I'm grateful for that.

So to sum it up, for what you pay for, these cups are way to expensive. I'm wishing I would have listened to the other reviews that pointed out most of these flaws but I figured that at a $20.00 discount it would have been worth it. But oh well. Live and learn I guess. If you are looking for a good performing set of cups and balls I would suggest saving a little more and shop around for a really nice set.