by Lady of Mystery » Jan 8th, '07, 12:22
The Effect
Make coins and other object vanish, appear and change in the palm of your or even your spectators hand.
Cost
around £30
Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
1 this is very easy
Review
I've always loved the Raven, however used it more as a tool to clean up after tricks than to actually perform any magic directly. The X2 is identical in concept to the original Raven except for the fact that it's now 'double headed'.
Does this improve the Raven? In some ways yes and in some ways no. It is much easier to perform switches than with the original version but it is also double the size. Although it's still very easy to conceal, the empty hands movement is slightly more tricky for those of us with small hands (yes your hands can be shown empty before and after performing).
The pack comes with a couple of gimmicked coins for performing a shrinking coin trick, although the coins are American so I'm unlikely to use them. It also comes with a nice bending key trick, the key can be handed out for inspection. The specs can try to bend the key and fail, the key is then placed in the palm, rubbed and it magically bends. A very nice trick which I'll be incorporating into my routine. There are many other ideas for tricks included too.
A lot of people say the setup and reset of the Raven is difficult, I've never found it so and have reset my old original Raven many times in the past in front of spectators.
A very useful tool for coin magic, wether to perform impressive, clean vanishes from the spectators palm or as a clean way to loose palmed coins.
Remember though that only certain coins will work with the Raven (if you're British, there are two very common coins which work perfectly).
Overall
7/10 a very useful piece of equipment