Impossible Card In Bottle by Gerald Kirchner

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Impossible Card In Bottle by Gerald Kirchner

Postby Nikodemus » Oct 30th, '05, 19:31



Impossible Card In Bottle by Gerald Kirchner

£25.00 from MartinBreeze

Effect type: Card Magic

Value for money: 5

Ease of use: (1 easy-5 hard) 3

Review:

THERE IS ALREADY A REVIEW/THREAD ON THIS (OR VERY SIMILAR) BY MAGIC MARK UNDER THE TITLE "Signed Card to Bottle ". I DECIDED TO PUT MY OWN REVIEW UNDER THE TITLE "Impossible Card In Bottle" AS THAT IS THE TITLE I BOUGHT THE PRODUCT UNDER.

Effect -
Spectator freely chooses any card & returns to deck. Deck is shuffled & card disappears. Card is immediately seen inside sealed bottle of fizzy drink. Bottle is opened & contents poured into cup. Card floats to top of cup & is taken by spectator. It is their signed card.

The blurb advertising this trick said two things that intrigued me.
1. it is practically self-working.
2. you get a box-full of gimmicks.

I think the first comment is justified; the second is not really. Read on & I will try to explain without revealing too much.

Obviously with any trick, you are largely paying for knowledge of the method. In this case it is fairly ingenious. It combines a number of fairly well-known basic techniques to create a good total effect. The cleverness lies in some of the details/gimmicks.
I did hear of another method that requires you to steal the signed card from an earlier trick. That is not necessary in this method. The card is also freely chosen, not forced.
To do this trick you do need to do a sleight to make their card disappear as you shuffle the deck. Thereafter, the trick is more or less self-working. There is a switch required, but the gimmicks should make it almost automatic.

The main thing you get for your money is a 23 page leaflet. It is fairly comprehensive, but could be better. There are annoying spelling mistakes & some sections are so badly written as to make no sense at all (to me anyway) - but the basic ideas are pretty clear. There is a VERY POOR description of how to do a card fold. Since this is the one essential sleight, they could have made more effort! Fortunately I own Expert Card Magic which has a couple of good descriptions.
The leaflet also describes quite a lot of variations on the trick. EG you could force a card at the beginning if you prefer; this will give you a cleaner ending. Or you could tear a corner instead of getting the card signed; this makes the method a bit easier, cos you don't have to produce the same (signed) card.

As for the gimmicks: they are ingenious, but mostly things you could buy/make yourself. They have come up with some pretty clever ideas to keep a card hidden from view inside the bottle until required. (They have even worked out which liquids a card will float or sink in!) As the card is poured from bottle to cup, the gimmicks allow an almost self-working switch.
BUT I do feel that most of the stuff that came in the box was not really necessary & only in there to justify the inflated price:
A completely normal bottle of Sprite (NOT gimmicked)
A forcing deck of Bicycle cards (unnecessary)
Some basic office supplies (I won't say what, but common & cheap)

The one gimmick that IS really useful is the thing to allow you to get a card inside a sealed bottle. They can only be used once each but you get about 25-30. These would be useful for lots of tricks. I wish they came in a variety of colours though. They do NOT perfectly match most bottled drinks on sale - but you could do a switch if you really want to.

Overall:
Various ingenious (but not new) ideas combine to give a powerful effect with an almost self-working method. One particular gimmick that is the icing on the cake, because the bottle is actually sealed. (But if you did the trick without a sealed bottle, it would still be almost as good.) So in the final analysis you are paying £25 for the secret - & most of the 'kit' in the box is not needed.

One final point - when you see the gimmick you will smack your head & say "why didn't I think of that". Then you will ask "where can I get more and in different colours?". Let me know if you find out!!!!

Nikodemus
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Joined: Oct 18th, '05, 21:53
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Postby Nikodemus » Oct 30th, '05, 19:37

Oh I nearly forgot - another piece of 'equipment' that was supplied - a totally ordinary waxed cardboard beaker like you would get a drink in at Burger King etc. Very silly!!!!!

Nikodemus
Preferred Member
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Oct 18th, '05, 21:53
Location: Glos, UK (43, AH)

Postby Tenko » Oct 31st, '05, 01:12

Nik,

I have posted about this effect on the previous thread. I've played with this effect and made some changes to it but still not got it to my liking.

I have sorted out the problem with the gimmicks though so PM me if you want to know that.

Tenko.

Yorkshire, UK
Male, 55yrs old, Retired.

"I don't believe it" Luke Skywalker
"That is why you fail" Yoda
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Tenko
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Joined: Mar 3rd, '05, 15:30
Location: Wakefield, UK

Postby mafiosoromano » Sep 16th, '06, 16:57

Is the bottle examinable before/during/after? I may have missed that point.

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mafiosoromano
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