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TheLondonI · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject: XL by Jay Sankey

XL by Jay Sankey

Pricing: £9.99 - £19.99
$15.00 - $20.00

What the manufacturers say:

““XL”- The incredible card illusion that BECOMES REAL!

The spectator shuffles the pack, touches any card and the selected card is closely examined. You remove two Jokers from your pocket and both Jokers are also examined. The selected card is slowly sandwiched between the two Jokers and that's when some VERY strange stuff starts to happen. First, one end of the face up selection VISIBLY STRETCHES! Then the other end VISIBLY STRETCHES! For the jaw-dropping climax the two Jokers and the STILL STRETCHED selected card are all handed out to be thoroughly examined! You have turned the selected card into an honest-to-goodness holy relic! Comes complete with extremely cool gimmicks for both red and blue Bicycle decks plus an exciting instructional DVD featuring 8 killer handlings including "The Classic Handling," "Stand-Up Stretch," "Spanish Inquisition," "Guerilla Warfare," "Not A Levitation," "Seated Stretch," "Don't Blink," "In Their Own Hands" and the "Holy Relic: Bonus Handling!"

In the DVD box:
-The DVD
-Necessary gimmicks
I noticed that there are no instructions on the other side of the DVD casing, unlike some other Jay Sankey products, which is a shame.

What I liked:
-How the effect is something very new and original. To the people I have already performed this to, practically all have admitted ‘WelI, I never thought that was going to happen!’

- As always Jays teaching is top class. Even if I was a complete novice I would be able to complete most of the handlings with just a little practice.

- The handling can suit your ability. Different handlings are harder than others. Therefore you can tailor make your performance that suits your ability.

- You end the effect clean. I feel that this is so crucial in close up effects and most of the work that you have to do in this trick is over before the audience ever knows it has begun.

- How the DVD is set up, with clear menu sections for Performance and Explanations. It was one of the best laid out magic DVDs I’ve seen.

- How a new force is explained in each handling, I especially liked the ‘Topper Force’ by Frank Garcia, which is used in the Holy Relic Handling. For everyone who saw Jay Sankey’s lecture in Blackpool, it was that very popular force that he explained, which I seemed to see everyone practice during the weekend. I found it hard to grasp just from that lecture and he goes in to a lot more detail on the DVD.

-How he kept his comedy to a minimum. I love some Jay Sankey comedy but in some of his DVDs he goes a little overboard, (revolutionary coin magic springs to mind!) But with this DVD it is kept to a nice level.

What I didn’t like:

- Sadly I can’t go much in to this point, due to fear of exposure. I feel the gimmick does not match what it is meant to completely correctly. I’m afraid I can’t go much further than this. This isn’t much of a problem however as people will rarely notice.

- When the description says ‘the card visibly stretches’ in capital letters I imagined you could see this card completely stretch in full view. This is not what you get. Have a look at the demo video for more information.

Overall View and Conclusion

All in all I feel this is a very good DVD and trick. The very small amount of bad points is more than made up for with the amount of good points and I was struggling to find more than one bad point, forcing me to be really picky with the title description.

Difficulty rating 2-3/5 (depends on handling)
Value for money 4/5 (depends on where you shop but as lots of forces and variations are included, it is definitely worth the money.

By the way, this is my first review and I would love to hear your comments, both positive and negative.

lindz · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject:

Is this instantly resetetable oh and nice review by the way.

TheLondonI · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: Depends on the handling

It all depends on the handling how long reset takes. All the reset that needs to be done is replacing the gimmick to its starting position it will not take anything longer than 20 seconds. I wouldn't say you could do this reset in front of a spectator just before you are about to perform the trick, but with some clever working and patter you may be able to - I wouldn't recommend it though.

Oh and by the way you can't really perform to the same spectator twice, not that you should do that with any trick.

And thanks for the comment!

lindz · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject:

Sorry one more thing can you use the gimmick in a normal pack of cards why you do your other tricks first, sorry forgot to add this question first time. Cheers for your reply.

Mikey.666 · Senior Member Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 881

thx for the review..ive had my eye on this effect for a while!

TheLondonI · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: Gimmick

Yes you can use the gimmick with your normal pack of cards.

lozey · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:34 pm Post subject: Re: Gimmick