Magic Tricks

Normally everything I've bought from "the 1914" has been good quality so I preordered this directly from them. I'd enjoyed Alexander's billet course and thoughts on stagecraft.

So I had high hopes for this. The download was available before the coins came. The quality of the teaching of sleights is good. Several different handlings are covered. The routine is fun, but has one very obvious issue evident in the trailer. You need to have the coin back in your hand. I thought, being the clever people they are, this would be discussed. It's an obvious weak point that you would want addressing. The finale with the imagined coin has an obvious method, that can be good with time delays and subtleties, but this has none. I had thought of this as a utility prop which I could do more routines with and I have a few ideas of my own. There are ideas for other presentations in the instructions, but none of them are really any good. An over elaborate way of forcing a spectator and a bare outline of a bank nite routine. I can't se any one using the extra routines.

So, the tutorial was ok, the method was taught well enough and I could get past the issues if the prop had been nice. But, the coin just feels badly developed. The coin is small, about 10p/quarter size, too light weight for a satisfying coin toss and too dark to see it well in low light. The design is too busy and with the small size and darkness hard to see. I can see it will be hard for spectators to see. This is a major problem as you do not want spectators inspecting this. Alexander says this has been a staple of his shows for a long time and I believe it might have been, but with real coins, not this prop. That is evidenced in the instructions where he states he is using a prototype different from what you receive. They decided to change the design as it was too busy. I don't believe this new design has gone through any trials otherwise the issues would have been picked up. The poor level of thought combined with the handling issues makes this an effect that just feels rushed to release. It feels as if no one has given any critical opinions in the development and spoken up to say how it could be better. Very disappointing from a usually reliable company. Could have been good, but isn't.