Last week, I was mentioning that a friend of mine ordered the 3 vol of Project. Well, he got it yesterday and he admitted to me that the routines are too advanced for him. Needless to say, he felt a bit regretted about the purchases.

As a friend, of course I didn't rub it in.

Anyway, I suppose all of us had the experience of buying "bad" tricks, sometimes due to poor recommendation, some due to the "powerful" advert and some due to misleading reviews from the seller.

So what were some of the worst tricks you ever bought, maybe we can share and prevent future regrets.

For me:

1. Ultimate Ace Assembly (Penguin): Require heavy set-up. Impractical. High risk of exposure. Unexaminable from start till end.

2. Mystery Card (penguin): Can only be performed on a black surface. Very impractical.

3. Invisible DecK: Ok, let me explain this, I bought a clip from this guy which he claimed is a "examinable and impromptu" version of the ID. Of course, I was very curious about it. In the end it turned out it was the ID explanation from Penguin. I confronted the guy (tru email) and he had the cheek to say that I should use my creativity to come up with our own ID routines.

Talk about misrepresentation.

Hmm. I also had some experience like that... Though i think for me that was because i was a beginner then. Seeing the trick, i liked it and i bought it. Should have done a bit of research..
Turns out that it wasn't suitable for me..
It was spoon-bending from a certain magic shop. :(

Which is why i like this forum.:wub: :wub:
It gives a chance to ask around about a trick (w/o spilling the secret) but at least we know the general comments about it and can find out if it is suitable through friend/forumite's recommendation.

A. :P

thats why we are against PRIATE!

I have to admit I bought some stuff off eBay which was marketed as the best thing since sliced bread. Needless to say I was utterly and completely duped.


NEVER BUY ANYTHING OFF EBAY!! I mean for magic ebooks that is...

Ok I will now go crawl in some corner and wallow in shame. :ph43r:

daniel's material is quite good if you actually practise it but it's more for the advanced level. ^_^ then again, keep practising.

i think i am getting the ego change by now. :P

anyway, every magic trick is good. it's just how you present it. if the trick is marketable, it should be more or less good. :D

Aaron

Every trick is good but not all tricks are good for everyone.

'Bad' tricks probably mean just that setting up is way too difficult or impractical and/ or it is not suitable for the performer's personality etc..

Just my thoughts. Sorry its a bit :off: i think.
A.

Eh... I too got the spoon thing from the "certain magic shop".

I have to say... its the best.

I love it and it really use it quite a bit actually.

Now that you're not a beginner why not go back to that routine and see if u can do it?

It works for me.

In His Love,
Falcon121

Wait till you see Killer Red Caps.

I went to check out killer red caps. The effect seems pretty good! haha.

But i'm sure you have your reasons...?

For me it's the Axis Change from E. It's one big hype. The change
is only good for one fixed camera position, that how angle
sensitive it is. It's a complete waste of money and have
written it off as a bad investment.

Personally, as a general rule, most packet tricks.

Main reasons (Generally):
-Possibly gimmicked and non-examinable
-Unnatural to just take out a small packet of cards (you can arguably try to create some reason, but these usually will not help much)
-Can only do 1 effect

But some packet tricks are, to me, exceptions (I think these are good):
-Ultimate 3 Card Monte
-Colour Monte
-Wild Card (I base this on Tommy Wonder's version, its the only version I am familiar with)

I got a certain spoon-bending from a local magic shop, and I never used it... ever. ;)

There are some other card tricks which I dumped for the same reasons.

I would like to suggest some "rules" for purchasing magic tricks:

• Never buy anything based on and advertisement (unless you *really* know the source)
• Consider your performing style - Roach from bloody eyeball just isn't right for everyone
• Consider your venue(s) where you typically perform - Will you perform the effect once or will you want to reset several times? Does the effect need a table? Special clothes? Body modifications?
• Remember that dealers demo effects under ideal conditions. These conditions rarely exist in the real world.
• It's OK to buy a trick because you want to learn the secret or because you think it look cool. However, you will want to acknowledge that up front.
• Believe it or not, there are tricks out there which were created to be sold, not performed. The description sounds great and they demo well. However something about them (see above) makes them inconvenient (at best) to perform. You may want to avoid them.

Regards,

Bob

P.S. imho

Sounds like damn good advice to me.....

But i guess it's part of the process, especially with the abundance of internet magic shopping nowadays, to have a wish list 70 items long, mostly things that we will never use. B)

Thanks! Learning these lessons took a while and cost quite a bit.

"You have how many Pom-pom poles?!?" (Which, btw, is *not* a bad trick :) )

Just wanna share my views. Buying something that seems useless to you is not necessarily a "BIG BAD TRICK". I would rather put it in this way as "rather disappointing". I mean that's the feeling one gets from expectations and all the marketing that hypes up the product. "No gimmicks, no set up, totally impromptu!" is what we are familiar with. But does it always come this way? The answer is of course no. They are trying to get people to purchase the effect and therefore twisting the reality. Like magic in a magic?

Then again, I've learnt that there are no bad tricks, only bad performers. The ID is an excellent gimmicked deck IMHO. And it's high dependent on how you use it. (Of course I'm not saying anyone is lousy) Go back to your storeroom and pick up your old tricks, gimmicks, effects that you once said was "lousy, impractical or too heavily set up", take them out and look at it again, you might be really really surprised.

To end off, nothing is perfect in this world. You can't eat the cake you took. Just 2cents, go figure.

-Dragon

Dragon has some excellent advice. I've done what he suggests on occasion, taking something that is sitting idle and work at making it good. Granted, it will probably never be as good as something that more completely fits my style but the effort makes it a good learning experience.

On a similar line, a friend of mine who used to own a magic shop would respond to a newbie wanting to buy a ton of stuff by offering to sell then a single, carefully chosen effect. The challange was to master that and *then* come back for more. I understand that some of the best magicians on the (US) east coast started out that way. (It was different for me, he gladly sold me everything in sight. )

Bob

I'll say that there are big bad tricks, tricks that should never be performed. They are inherently bad no matter how good the performer is (perhaps if the performer is good, he'll never ever want to perform it).

I think it is really crazy to think that (as commonly preached) "the tricks doesnt matter, it is just how you present it". Yes, there are tricks that may or may not suit you, but I believe that there are just bad tricks, tricks with handling that is unmotivated, excessive, unnatural, with unclear effects, poor impact, everything that is of no fault of the performer.

If you pay for a cake, you deserve a good quality one, whether or not it suits your taste is a different thing.