talkmagic.co.uk

Today I paid a visit to one of Madrid's two magic shops in order to check out the Scotch and Sodas made in euros. I came out with a very nice set indeed.

Despite the bad reviews over the years, Tango, a company based in Argentina, makes some excellent gaffed coins. I was genuinely surprised, and am now very happy with my purchase.

For 28 euros I got the 50 cents s---l, the 5 cents ins--t and a brass bang ring. They even come in a handy real leather pouch.

To test the examinability of the product, I changed up 10 euros into a bag of 50 cents pieces, tossed the S&S amongst them and spent the best part of an hour trying to find it again by sight and touch alone. The join is excellent, as is the rest of the coin.

So, no complaints. When my Johnson, Sterling and Gibson sets arrive I may be able to judge quality a little better, but as a user I am already impressed. My girlfriend has no idea how the 5 cent coin vanishes, and that's how things should stay for a while.

Thanks for that caubeck. For along time I have avoided the euro versions as I had heard they were so badly made.

According to one seller, Tango is now producing much better coins than before.

I'm still happy with my S&S, after a week of use. I am currently using it with a small red silk, into which I place the two coins, opening it afterwards to show how one has vanished.

My Johnson set arrived yesterday. It's beautiful and shuts so smoothely, but I wonder how I am going to use it. I honestly wasn't aware how large these coins were until they arrived!

But one thing I can see for sure: one's own currency, despite all the stories that can be spun to justify having foreign coins in your hand, is always the best choice for sporadic occasions. I believe that if I used the Johnson half dollar spontaneously my audience/victim/spectator would want to take a look at the flip side first, as it's a surprisingly large and shiny coin.

Chris

Amazingly, just as I reached the last line of the above text, the doorbell rang. It was the postman - with my magnetic Gibson euro! How about that for a coincidence!

I've just opened the packet (sent special delivery by MagicBox, in 3 days) and I think I've said "wow" four times in the space of a minute.

I'm having so much scotch and soda this week that I feel almost drunk with glee.

caubeck wrote:I am currently using it with a small red silk,

Is there any chace that the silk could interfere with the mechanism?

I dont personally own a S + S, or a coin unique (or to be precise, any coin magic) so wouldnt really know, but, hey, coin magic is the way to go i believe!

Ta

Mark

Hi Mark,

The silk I'm using is small and easy to control - well, I don't think it's genuine silk at all, to be honest. So it doesn't get caught up in the mechanism.

Another advantage is that when you perform, you can press quite hard and nobody notices, so you always get perfect results. Any noise is assumed to be from the coins rattling. When my girlfriend saw the trick for the second time, I gulped when the click seemed loud enough to echo through the neighbourhood, but she said "Wow, and I was so sure you had both coins in there because I heard them rubbing together!"

Basically I just place the silk, or "silk," on their palm and ask them to look inside. If you have a re-emerged coin ready somewhere it looks pretty good. But the reason I'm using the silk is that I am not sure I could get away with having them hold the coins behind their back in the traditional s&s way. I will work towards that.