Vintage Original Three Shell Game This Is the Oldest Con Game Ever Played A high-performance set of shells that handles well on the STREETS. This is YOUR CHANCE to learn this crowd-pleaser and get a top-quality set of shells. Highly recommended! THIS VINTAGE SET IS FROM A MAGIC ESTATE SALE. I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THESE WERE PURCHASED IN THE LATE 1940s to EARLY 1950s. I CAN’T TELL IF THEY ARE REAL OR MANUFACTURED! THEY LOOK AMAZING! NO INSTRUCTIONS! YOU GET THE -3-SHELLS AND -1- PEA
NO REFUNDS! NO RETURNS!
What’s wrong with that description is that those shells are 100% 3d printed or made from a mold of a 3d printed shell. How 3d printing works is that it makes things in layers, and that leaves ridges and those are clearly visible in the picture.
The seller say’s they’re from the 1940’s or 1950’s, when really the oldest they’d be is probably 2010, which is a solid 60 years newer than the seller claims. I’m not saying the seller is knowingly lying about the age, however whoever gave them the mid 20th century claim is incorrect.
This is a situation where having a little bit of knowledge of materials will save you $80!!!
Here’s another packet trick I picked up from a magic shop’s junk bin. It’s called Liar’s Blackjack by Bob King. It’s sorta an all backs routine, but not really. You have five cards that have backs on both sides, then a few faces appear and one of them changes.
Here’s what it looks like with when the original instructions are followed and my update on the trick:
The big change is that I got rid of the cards with backs on both sides. That’s such a strange object that the routine really glosses over and I think detracts from the routine. Using blank face cards keeps the focus on the effect and presentation. Then a little change in the count as the Kiss Elmsley doesn’t really work with the blank face cards, so I used the Hypnotic Rumba Count.
This isn’t a routine that I would ever do, but I think that getting rid of the cards with backs on both sides is a HUGE improvment!
In my close up work I don’t really do any packet tricks, however I love working through them. One thing I like to do is buy packet tricks out of junk bins at magic shops and then try to improve them. In a recent junk packet trick purchase I got Nick Trost’s Kannibal Kards.
First of all, the art is offensive by today’s standards, however this was made in 1981, so over forty years ago when this style of art would have been acceptable. That doesn’t make it right, but socially acceptable at the time.
The effect is that two cards disappear one at a time within a packet of three cards. Then for then ending there is a surprise reveal card.
The problem with the original routine (besides the art) is that the first card physically disappears and the second one doesn’t. Here’s what the original routine and my improvement looks like:
What I did was change the handling so that the second card also physically disappears and then for the reveal, all three remaining cards change to the surprise card, not just one card. I also noticed there’s a little subtlety where you can show show half of the reveal card and it appears to be one of the original cards. This works with the original card set, however it’s not mentioned in the instructions.
I also made a version using the original handling with a slightly different reveal card at the end
One of the things that I collect are three shell game sets. I have a pretty big collection of shell game sets, and it’s getting harder and harder to finds ones that I don’t have. I recently came across this set:
And here’s the under side of the shells:
Initially I thought these were resin, but thank to Andrew Pinard’s suggestion, I did some more inspection and they are natural walnut shells that have been filled and coated.
It’s taking some time go get through the JP Vallarino book, but I’m still working on it. I finished the card sandwich section last night and there’s one thing that really stuck out to me. I think it was called the “automatic sandwich“, it’s a very hands off way to get the selected card in between the two other cards.
Before you watch the video, while you can’t see the cards, I never touch the pair of cards, the selection or any of the cards and there are no gimmicks.
And here’s how it works:
I feel OK showing this as the routine makes it happen openly, so I’m not giving away anything secret that wouldn’t be shown if I did the trick as written. In the video above I’m blowing on it, in the book Vallarino uses a riffle to create the air force to blow the card.
This would make an interesting bar bet OR as a paper balls over head sort of trick where everyone sees how it works except for the person who selected the card. It’s a fun little bit for a card sandwich routine, I don’t really do any card sandwich routines, but might start just to use this bit!
Years ago I built a set of soft pins for the linking pins trick out of giant 5 inch safety pins. These aren’t as easy to make as you’d think. There are a couple of challenges, like the safety pin take a lot of force to open and close. The tension on the spring make getting the pin over the lip a challenge to open and close the soft pin.
My solution was to cut off the lip of the safety pin, so that the the pin had less distance to travel, making it easier to open and close the soft pin.
That partially solved the problem the of opening and closing the soft pin. The final part was to shorten the needle of the pin, so that it was easier to load things on and off of the safety pin.
After that, the final alteration was to bend the pin so that it functioned like a traditional soft pin. I’ve been using these pins for years and they work great. I’ve seen in magic groups on the internet people ask about gimmicking these giant safety pins and other magicians say that you can’t. Those magicians are wrong and I’ve intentionally not really mentioned you could. I liked keeping this thing for me…or so I thought.
Recently while digging through a junk magic bin I found this:
In this book from 1994, Jose De La Torre came to almost the exact same solution as me…but 30 years before me! While I’m disappointed I’m not the first person to solve this problem, I’m also not surprised. Scaling it up in size logical extension of the close up linking safety pins.
I’m glad I started doing spoon/fork bending again, it’s a lot of fun, but it also makes really great pictures!
A lot of magic tricks can’t really tell a story, but a bent fork or spoon definitely does! I’m having a blast doing this in my show! If you’re interested in spoon/fork bending, look into Ben Harris’s book Bend it Like Geller!
One of the things I really enjoy is going to magic shop and digging through their bins of junk magic. I really like buying a random shoe box sized amount of magic for cheap and then working through the magic to try to find some cool forgotten piece of magic.
In a recent purchase I found Ring Pins, and when I saw the package, I didn’t think it’d be any good, but I was wrong!
What’s cool about this is that there are no gimmicks or altered props (like soft pins). I did have to change the hand positions from what are in the instructions and break the “secret” into to motions instead of one to make it work for me.
I think I’m going to make some that have the safety pins soldered shut and are presented as puzzles.
I haven’t put it on my phone yet, however I like the idea of using it to force the fractions of a second. I have an idea for it…I want to have a breath holding contest with person from the audience and ultimately the game tied down to the fraction of seconds. This would be revealed by a prediction that is revealed in stages.
I haven’t gotten to play with the app yet, so my opinion may change once I actually use it.
Sometimes a prop just looks cool and I want to figure out a way to use it. One of those props is the brass plates for the trick Collectors Workshop’s Jaks or Better. The prop consists of two brass plates that are screwed together and dangle from a chain.
Personally I’m not a fan of the trick that the brass plates come with. The Jaks or Better effect is basically a drawing duplication. Someone picks a card and puts it between the two plates. You then draw the picture that they put in between the two brass plates. The effect is fine, I’m not a fan of the method.
The original props looked like this:
About a year ago I bought a set and unfortunately they had changed the brass plates to a powder coated set of red plates. The red plates lack the character that the brass plates have. According to the Viking Magic (who owns Collector’s Workshop) website they switched to the powder coated plates because the brass tarnished.
Personally I think that the tarnished brass is what makes it look cool and interesting.
I’ve had the red set of plates kicking around on my desk for a while and I hadn’t come up with something to do with it. Then as I was heading out to a week or so ago to do a roving magic gig, I had an idea. What if a signed card came out from between the plates?
The method would simply be a double backed card. All I had was a red/blue double backed card, but I grabbed it anyway and put it between the plates.
After arriving early to the gig, I was playing around with the plates in my dressing room and realized I really didn’t need the chain, so I took that off. I also noticed the ring that served as the hinge was too big for what I wanted and didn’t hold the plates tight enough. Luckily I had a small key ring that I could put on it.
Here’s the altered plates:
It really doesn’t look like much difference, but the small ring for the hinge makes a huge difference!
I use blue decks, so the card coming out of the plates out have to be red.
The routine was simple. During my close up set I took the plates out and set them on the table. Then later during my ambitious card routine, after the card has some out of my wallet, I say, “You can keep the card or trade it for what’s in between the metal plates“. 100% of people took the metal plates. What’s fun, is someone every time also said they bet it was the card.
When the plates were unscrewed and a red card came out, it was a great moment to release tension as it clearly wasn’t there card. Then the card is turned over and it is the signed card, and the reveal had a huge impact.
initially my plan was to simply put the card back in between the plates and move on. On the second group I tried it on I handed them the card face up, and was surprised I got a bonus trick when they turned the card over and noticed it now had a blue back!
I thought the color changing back would signal that something fishy was going on, but to my surprise it was interpreted as a trick and it had a great impact!
I don’t know if I’m going to keep using the red powder coated plates, or try to find a brass set, but I do know I’m going to keep doing this bit!
