First off let me say that I had the opportunity to chat with Olivier prior to purchasing this and he couldn't have been any more humble. He is extremely passionate about what he does and I envy that. I also spoke with Vanishing prior to the release, and I can say that they aren't so friendly a lot of the times. Regardless, I thought this was something visually creative and up my ally (as i do mainly mentalism & some visual magic) however, i was unfortunately fooled.

I will be very very clear... This is NOT a worker. This is NOT practical. Imagination Box is a different way of doing some of things you can do with TOOL but with added the dry erase white board component of this product - and a new method (one i am not a fan of) really makes this seem like it will have a a lot of blowback for people that have similar situations as the months go by and the reviews come in.

I spent so much time on the DIY part of this & now on a review, regardless I wanted to share my experience to help you when looking at a product I have a positive/ negative response from. The video states 15 minutes or however long approx. The reason it took me so long is #1 - I learn differently, & #2 - I did not know until creating the gimmick with materials provided that I would have to make TWO Imagination Boxes!!!!! Honestly, this is so falsely marketed Box means ONE, it should be BOXES or another name than imagination. Also I HATE THREAD. I will NOT go into what the thread is used for or how, but that is a big component into this which makes the DIY NOT what is advertised nor should you say that with cool graphics in your trailers because they make things sound great until you have a situation like mine.

The Trailer is deceptive as you are made to seem like you are creating these possibilities all from one box, but you have to make up two boxes. You don't get enough of some of the materials to fully make two boxes as I noticed and checked what I would need to make the second one. The whole purpose of the SECOND BOX is to do things like you would SIMILAR TO TOOL. If you watch the trailer, at times you will see a dry erase piece on the box - and at other times you will see it looking NORMAL with no dry erase piece. That is what I am talking about with the TWO BOXES you have to make if you want to do those two different effects. Even if you wanted to do some of the effects with the NON Dry Erase/ normal box you would make - YOU WOULDNT HAVE ALL THE MATERIALS TO MAKE THE EFFECTS HAPPEN! In the Instructional, Olivier shows you what he did with some parts that magicians use in these kind of gimmicks / boxes and that part was NOT included , yet shown on the box how to set up (very hard to find as it needs to be, .... strong*)

In addition, I received the white board card crooked and off center as if it was cut differently. I get that they wanted to go DIY so you could make this yourself and cost of the parts are much cheaper versus them shipping you a fully finished product/ gimmicks - however I would have much rather received a fully finished product/ gimmick two boxes and paid more for it due to all of these troubles, missing pieces to do the second box effects, & lot of DIY that is beyond 15 second by far. Don't get me wrong - I love getting crafty, creating things from others and myself however - I cannot stand when you are looking forward to something that really could have been made and shipped out but due to labor, sales etc. I can really see how cheap they went on this just by the small flat box, online video - Dont be Fooled as i said...

The Angles are not too great. You have to really cover yourself and a good chunk of the last part of the video is focused on angles... Its a lot of time and I was hoping it would be more ideas to do (which Olivier does go over some cool things and I will say that there is NO SOH for the most part pending what you want to do) however it focused mostly on the DIY ; then you realize you have to make two boxes to do what you are about to see next and dont have the materials to do the things you can do with that second box, WAIT! But if you have TOOL, then you are set!

So where is this going? I dont know how many card boxes you want to carry around with you and even the one itself, I am not crazy about. I honestly LOVE the idea of what Olivier was going for here, but I simply wont work with the materials / method used for this product you need to put together , not the whiteboard - something else that you would find upon opening it. Overall, I am honestly very disappointed. I had higher hopes for this. I thought this would be something new and practical, but it is the opposite of those things. It is not a worker by any means and takes up so much space as if we all have enough decks & gimmicked decks set up in our arsenals.

In the end, I wasted a lot of my time & money. I cannot speak for what will work for you, I can only explain my experience. Thought it would be helpful to share, so think about how practical this would be in your case. I look forward to more releases and Penguin Exclusives to come, I am not surprised by Vanishing's lack of information on this product as it never had the bio that you see when I purchased of course for a pre order - but thereafter it released and shipped, I am on Penguin's pages daily checking whats trending and never saw the updated bio till recent days. Bottom line - I'm not a "Vanishing" fan, and this is not the first time they have wasted my Time and Money.

I will NOT be asking for a refund or a store credit because I honestly do not want to deal with the headache of going through that process again with another product and the little materials you do get - I can save for my own creations.

I was going to give this a 1 rating, but Olivier as I said was and is a great person with passion behind his creations however this whole project is a mess in my opinion & with the amount of time I went through, I couldn't be more frustrated than anything. Vanishing inc is turning into Sandsminds slowly... not always but at times it seems their products are getting more deceptive and NOT PRACTICAL. So yes Vanishing INC, you get the 2 rating. I hope this helps you on your decision making & that my review has been informative, all the best!

Yep. Another wonderful craft project. I figured with the amount they are charging for this packet, that there might be a gimmick assembled already. No luck. Very disappointing. The video is half ass too. The trick doesn't even look good once it's made, and to watch the creator struggle with it is embarrassing.

This one get's my all time lowest score. If you make $200 for an hour of performance, then this effect is costing you $130 to make, because it will take about a half hour to construct.

Steer away from making the same mistake I made by buying this. Trust me.

So I finally had a chance to make the gimmick and got a chance to play around with this. I'm gonna be honest, when I watched the download I was a little worried.To me it didn't really seem workable and it seemed very angley. I decided to put together the gimmick and see how it actually played. It took about 5 minutes for me to make the gimmick but if you have no experience with making this type of thing it will probably be closer to 30 minutes. I practiced the "move" (gimmick does everything) and it looked super good in the mirror. I wasn't for sure if it would still be workable so I went to my mom to show because she will call me out if it's a garbage trick or looks bad. So I did it for her, and she loved it. I tried again with different objects at different parts of the day and she didn't catch anything and was impressed everytime. However, I would not recommend performing this to the same person multiple times. I played around with the handling as well and adapted it so I can hold normally and perform it. Olivier's handling works just find but I like holding it how I usually hold a deck of cards and that is an option if you are concerned about that kind of thing.
The pros of this trick would be: Very visual, can produce about anything (anything that can fit on your drawing) there is no palming, and angles are better then I thought( probably about 95 degrees).
The cons : I don't believe this can be used anytime like the ad copy says, the get ready is really short but you can't do it in front of your spectators. I can only really see this being used as an opener. The box also can't be examined before or after the change.
All in all I think this trick has a lot of good points and it's something I can see myself using especially if someone wants to just see something really quick. All in all I rate this a 4/5.

Alright so after reading the first two reviews I emailed penguin and asked what their return policy was, because I had made a mistake by ordering an effect without waiting for real world used reviews, and was basically waiting for this package to arrive so I could return it. Well, it arrived a few days ago, and I got a chance to watch the tutorial and create the gimmick. I think I would call it more of a utility device rather than a gimmick though. Needless to say, I did not return this effect. I watched the download and figured that it was worth the time it took to construct the device. The method is clever, and it looks great. If you're not afraid to take 40 minutes to an hour out of your schedule to construct this device, I believe you will have a good time using this effect. The trailer is true in stating your imagination is the the limit. You can easily perform the effects in the trailer. And much more. You actually receive props to make two different devices that allow you to perform different effects such as appearances, vanishes, predictions, changes and transpositions. The downside is you aren't clean to begin with, and box itself can't be examined by the spectator. However, you can show your hand empty before you do the "move" (hardly a move.. It's basically self working); and you can show both hands empty as well as all sides and angles of the card box after you've completed the effect. Everything is hidden and you have a full deck of cards inside. You just can't hand out the box. However.. do a card trick? People will forget about the box. It's a good effect. It'll be great for opening at walk around events or any situation really. I will be using this to introduce new props, or change props, myself. They COULD have included an already made device, however, I think they took the right approach by having buyers make it themselves. To keep cost down, and because realistically it would just take way too long for them to mass produce these things. If you aren't willing to put some time into your art.. then I guess this isn't for you. But really.. neither is magic.

I really like this effect, and the possibilities that come from the utility!

This effect does take a while to put together yourself and it can be difficult. It is angle sensitive and would not be for every situation.

However, in the hands of a professional performer, or even an amateur with good audience management skills, this utility does have the versatility to add an amazing moment of visual magic to a routine.

In my opinion, the best way to use this effect would be as a surprise, the kicker to an effect as a surprise visual, unexpected transformation.

I will be using this, especially for walk around, with handling that I have developed to eliminate set up and angle difficulties, as it is too versatile and amazing an effect to be intimidated by the challenges.

All this being said, this is not for everyone. I expect creative magicians, and those that do not like to copy routines, and would rather develop and create their own handlings and ideas to use this. If you do not like arts and crafts, want something fully routined to walk step by step through, and for it to be bullet proof with angles and all audiences without effort, this is not for you.

It did immediately spark my imagination and I will be using it for many different purposes. 4 out of 5 for me personally, 1 star off because for all the effort on the side of the magician purchasing the effect, it seems overpriced for what you actually end up receiving in the way of materials and depth of ideas from the video.

Think about if you would use it and how before buying. If you are a creative magician, this is for you. If you like no effort effects and shows, this is probably not for you.

Pros:
Looks great
many applications
semi-practical (see below)
appears clean at the end (though it isn't)
fast reset; 5-10 seconds
Cons:
noisy- be careful of doing this in a quiet environment
finicky arts and crafts involved (one time only per box, though)
only semi-practical (see below)
similar gimmick to Ink-a-Change though used in some different ways
box is unexaminable
a bit angly- no one can be behind you or at your sides
You can only do this as an opener (though you theoretically could use this for each table you approach after a reset)

Some notes on the above: You could perform this walkaround but you would need to duck out of sight for the reset- that and the angle limitations are why I list it as only semi-practical. The box is not examinable but you can show it fairly on all sides and chances are the spectators won't suspect it but you must prepared to use your audience management skills in case they do. Since you can keep the cards in the box, it's probably best to immediately remove them (allaying some suspicion) and go directly into a card trick.

Just add to card it very good!

All other post bad review need to grow up this trick is great i love building gimmicks.i was hoping it was set up so i xan build it and so it is.

This is good magic, a real cool idea. A method I haven’t seen. BUT! It comes in pieces. Everything you need to construct the gimmick, other than a pretty standard card box, is included. But I HATE arts and crafts and that’s what this is. A pretty involved one, in my opinion. I wish I had been warned because, had I known, I would not have purchased this. Sorry.