Which Version of a Trick Should You Buy?

The girl’s jaw dropped. She began frantically searching through the deck of cards in disbelief.

The other students started shouting things like “No way!” and “What the--?”

Yes, I thought, this is a keeper.

For the last few months, I’ve become obsessed with the Card to Shoe plot. I love Signed Card/Bill to Impossible Location.

In my Character Education assembly program, I use David Regal’s Clarity Box to reveal a student’s signed card. If you’re not familiar with it, a card is signed and lost in the deck.

Before the cards are even in play, a clear box is introduced. The audience can clearly see a folded-up card in the box.

After the signed card is lost in the deck, the magician opens the box, dumps out the card, unfolds it, and reveals it’s the signed card.

REALLY strong stuff.

So for my Reading assembly, I wanted to do another Signed Card to Impossible Location. After watching Mac King’s Penguin Live lecture, I settled on Card to Shoe.

Disappointingly, it’s hard to find a lot of card-to-shoe effects or routines.

I first tried Mac’s Card to Shoe as taught in his lecture. The beauty of Mac’s routine is that it’s completely impromptu.

But after a few performances, I abandoned that approach. Without getting into specifics, you can’t show the card in the shoe before removing it.

You could plant a card in your shoe in advance if you want. But the removal of the card looks a little wonky to me.

Believing I was just ‘thinking like a magician,’ I tried it at a few shows for audiences of different ages.

Sure enough, the kids let me know in no uncertain terms what they thought was happening.

So I moved on. On Ellusionist, I found a simple download by Justin Miller called, appropriately enough, “Card to Shoe.”

This involves a mercury fold, which I’m familiar with. And it looks pretty good.

But right before you do the final reveal, you have to do something a little bold…at the exact moment people are burning you and your shoe.

I tried that routine, and it got good reactions. But I felt there had to be something better.

So I dug through my trunk of Forgotten Props (we all have one) and found my copy of Sole Snatcher I’d purchased years ago.

It involves altering one of your shoes slightly. Well, adding something to your shoe. It’s a one-time thing and easy to do.

I’d abandoned the idea years ago because I didn’t like adding anything to my shoes.

But I had an extra pair of sneakers in good shape, so I figured, why not?

Sole Snatcher allows you to show your hand unmistakably empty, remove your shoe, show the folded-up card inside, and dump it into your other hand.

Of course, it’s the spectator’s signed card.

And it’s easy to do.

After about an hour of practice, I was surprised to feel it was show-worthy.

So far, I’ve performed it around six times. I LOVE this trick. It’s so much fun.

Which leads me to this week’s topic: What version of a trick should you buy?

As any magician knows, there is often a plethora of different versions of effects, especially classic routines.

Which one you buy depends a lot on your needs. Impromptu routines, routines with zero pre-show prep, are great in that you can do them anywhere, anytime, at least in theory.

Since I’m almost exclusively a stage guy, my needs are different than a close-up magician.

For the stage, I want a version of a trick that looks as fair as possible. I’m willing to forgo impromptu if I get a better ‘picture’ of the effect on stage.

Comparing Sole Snatcher to Mac King’s Card in Shoe, I found Mac’s to be lacking. I simply couldn’t show things as fairly as I wanted.

I’m not picking on Mac. I think he’s amazing.

But for performing for 200-400 skeptical kids at a time, my methods have to be bulletproof. When I do effects like Car in Shoe, I’m usually doing them for kids ages 8-12.

That’s a very skeptical age group.

So the more fair-looking and seemingly impossible-looking an effect appears, the better it passes muster.

This means I often have to sacrifice impromptu methods for more prep before the show. I’m totally okay with that.

Close-up magicians often need routines with zero reset. They’re often going from table to table or group to group.

Resetting takes too much time. For them, instant reset is preferred.

Stage guys like me usually don’t have to worry about performing the same effect in one day 15 or 20 times.

So here’s the ‘meat’ of my message today:

When choosing an effect, look at your likely performing venues and needs.

Does the effect satisfy your needs? Are you strolling? If so, does it reset instantly?

Does the effect work for your venue?

I remember years ago buying an appearing anvil effect. It was really cool, but after trying it just once, I sold it.

When it dropped and hit my office floor, it left a big divot where it landed. No way that would fly in a school gym.

Does the effect work for your likely angles?

For years I used Jimmy Fingers’s Magellan Levitation. This thing looked amazing! But I eventually sold it.

It had some angle problems. If kids were sitting close to me in a gym, the kids on the far right or far left could sometimes see what was going on.

Is the effect/prop durable?

A couple of years ago, I purchased Pro Diminishing Cards by Trevor Duffy. I loved the routine and gave it a perfect review on my podcast. But after 25 performances, the gimmick broke.

After purchasing a second set, it broke after 16 performances.

That lack of durability just won’t fly with me.

Do as much research as you can on any effect you’re thinking about buying. See if you can get real feedback from real pros.

Finally, if you’re enamored with a specific plot in magic (as I was with Card to Shoe), realize you may have to try different versions of the same effect.

Always listen to the reactions of your audience. It doesn’t matter how much you like an effect if it doesn’t resonate with your audience.

I wasn’t thrilled with having to go through three different versions of Card to Shoe.

But now I’m glad I did. Otherwise, I would have just settled on the first one…resulting in a poor experience for my audiences.

Remember that it’s your audiences who are going to see your magic.

Make sure whatever you put in front of them ticks all the boxes.

Have a great week!

--Cris

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