Magic Tricks

Like anything, there is room for improvement. Overall, this is pretty excellent. I already had the gimmick in half dollar size, so decided to get the Eisenhower set and see how I liked it. A few quick notes about the physical props:

My tin was a rectangular box, like an altoids tin, rather than round. Makes zero difference, just surprised me when it arrived. Also, the coins were simply wrapped in wax paper and put in the tin, along with the link to the video download. They arrived safe and sound, so maybe foam etc. would be unnecessary, but would have been kinda nice. Again, not a big deal. The last minor quibble - the coins arrived dirty. Like, had some kind of liquid splotches on them, etc. As if they were pulled out of someone's pocket, thrown in the box and shipped out. A little soap and water cleaned them up perfectly, so no harm no foul.

A slightly more important set of quibbles, that make this, for ME, four stars instead of five - only one of the coins provided fit the gimmick correctly. As it seems to be a 'regular' and not an 'expanded' gimmick, I can kind of understand this - except that I accidentally got the gimmick locked on the wrong coin a few times. After the second or third time of having to throw it into my cupped hand to try and dislodge it, I finally just took an emery board to the edges of the second coin until it slips in and out of the gimmick as well as the other one. Problem solved, but a little unnecessary. At the price of the package, you can buy the video, and a gimmick + coin from Roy Kueppers, or even buy the gimmick + 4 coins for a few more than this set, and throw an extra 15 on top for the video. So, based on price, I feel like it is totally fair to be a bit nitpicky about the little things. That said, after that minor modification, everything works great, and I am very happy with the set.

Quick tip - in the video, he recommends masking tape to help mask the noise. I went instead with the clear double-stick tape, and a disk of toilet paper. Seems to pad the noise even better, and does not seem to have added enough depth to the nested set to matter.

The video: I bought the video primarily to learn the snap production. I wish he had spent a little more time on teaching it - specifically how to actually snap the coin into view. Lovely details on everything leading up to it, but the actual bringing it into view part seems a little neglected. With practice and experimentation, however, it can be figured out and looks great! It DOES seem to be drastically easier to get a good "snap" from the dollar size coins than from a half dollar, at least in my hands.

If I were going to buy this again, I think I would have instead bought the coins from RK and just purchased the download, but overall I have learned a lot, and am quite happy with the set. If you just want to order one item and be done with it, however, and don't mind possibly doing a little work to fine tune the fit of the gimmicks, then by all means, pick this up!