Jim Pace's electric hot leads is way better, but it is no longer being sold. I actually closed a
number of big gigs because the client kept my business card for a number of months in her wallet and
kept telling everyone about how "this magician set his business card on fire."
Andy Amyx's
version that is being sold here... you can only burn one card at a time and then re-soak the cards
one at a time (even though he claims you can load 4 or 5 - it is not really workable nor
recommended, unlike Jim Pace's electric hot leads). The positioning of the heating element is also
very bad... it is at the back of the cards rather that in contact with the front of the card. That
means that there is not enough air at times for the card to light up and it tends to cause a small
burn mark where the heating element is. Jim Pace's one does not do this and you can indeed load
multiple cards with Jim Pace one. Also... if you do have some excess fuel in the plastic pouch left
over in the wallet, be aware that the pouch is made of plastic (of all things!) unlike Jim Pace's
one which is a leather part of the wallet with metal insert and therefore fire resistant. The
plastic construction of Andy Amyx's pouch meant that the fuel inside the pouch might catch fire and
when you close the wallet to put it out, the plastic actually seals itself up so that the opening of
the pouch becomes permanently sealed! Pretty stupid design. With this device, you cannot show the
inside of the wallet when you open it. In comparison, with Jim Pace electric hot leads, you can look
at the whole inside of the wallet as a spectator and will not see a thing. Not to mention, this one
has a badly positioned button which makes it almost impossible to press it when there is a card (or
a few cards) infront of it. In comparison, the Jim Pace's Electric Hot Leads one has a different
position of the button and it does not even look like a button and a spectator can look at it and
not even realise it is a button. The owner of a shop who sold this to me also bought one for himself
and his wallet spoilt in just a few days. He had to get another one, and when he did, the plastic
pouch on his wallet also sealed up after using it and he had to source for more plastic pouches at a
stationary shop and replace it. I too had to buy a more durable plastic "pouch for the wallet".
In my opinion, this is the worst purchase I made in the last 6 months (And I do purchase a
lot from various sources). I think Burning Connections is a cheap ripped off of Jim Pace's electric
hot leads. I am usually very generous when it comes to giving high review for magic props, but in
all honestly. This is a really badly made product. The only reason this would be better than the Jim
Pace version is that this has a on/off switch to prevent accidental mis-fires. But it is really an
inferior version.
Perhaps Penguin magic might want to explore the possibly of getting Jim
Pace's Electric Hot Leads back on the market. That is a fantastic card-on-fire wallet. Andy Amyx's
one is terrible. Sad to see such a poorly made product being released by such a big name in magic.
