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The Effect

Five dollar bills are shown separately on both sides. They are folded and visually change into five hundred dollar bills, which can then also be shown separately and on both sides. Finally the magician repeats the process to change them back into dollars.

Cost

I got it for £19.99 from Alakazam

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)

2 really, more a case of learning the sequence of events than any moves as such.

Review

I saw this advertised on Reel Magic and made a mental note to check it out at some point, despite the breathless quotes from other magicians on the case (which always puts me off). The effect does exactly what it says on the tin, in fact I've put in the extra stuff about showing everything on both sides above to emphasise this.

The gimmick is the same as Greg Wilson's Hundy 500, which according to Karl Hein (the Heiny of the title) is a variation of Pat Page's Easy Money effect, so essentially you're getting Karl's handling of an established effect. I don't know much about the original other than a vague knowledge of the gimmick's manufacture so I can't comment on the differences but I was assured by a couple of people in the know that this handling is significantly improved and much better than any previous ones so worthy of being released in it's own right.

Anyway the effect. As a magic trick goes you can't get more straightforward and powerful than turning money into more money. Before he even explains the gimmick Karl goes into some detail on the history of the effect giving lots of credit where it's due and then the presentational reasons for changing the bills back again after you've changed them once. There's a nice sprinkling of common sense theory here, after all as he points out if you could really change $5 into $500 you wouldn't bother performing at parties, so this is reflected in the patter and gives you a motivation to change the money back again, creating a more powerful experience for the spec.

The change is great, after clearly showing five bills and counting them slowly from hand to hand, showing both sides of each as you go, you fold up the packet and get a kind of visual change as you fold over and a different bill emerges. When you unfold the packet you basically repeat the counting procedure to show all the bills have changed. Then you do the same thing again to change them back. Everything looks natural and fits with the script, there's no unnecessary displacement or cover at any point. As Karl points out the second change is the best as the specs will be burning your hands but there's nothing to see. He goes into sufficient depth on the subtleties at every point so that the handling of the gimmick is clean and unsuspicious.

Speaking of the gimmick, a couple of things you'll need to know. Firstly it uses real money, so this could be a bit of a downfall depending on the depths of your pockets. Certainly to do the effect with the dollar to hundred dollar transformation you'd need to have $606 to play with as the gimmick itself requires a few bills to make up plus the others for the change. Fortunately you don't need to permanently destroy any money but having that much cash on you for one trick might certainly be a bit much for a hobbyist. However, the principle can be applied to any paper as long as it's the same size so any US bills could be changed into any other. For us Brits unfortunately it's a different story as our money is of differing dimensions but you can get around that easily enough. I've made up the gaff with ordinary paper to practice with but in performance I'll probably turn photocopied tenners into real ones. Give it some thought and there's plenty of options.

In terms of difficulty I'd relate this to a packet trick like Gemini Twins, you don't need to do any tricky sleights (Karl even gives you some tips for the construction so that you minimise any potential problems) but you need to learn a sequence of events and movements to the point where you can do them whilst pattering and without hesitation. Once you've made up the packet you can have it in your wallet and pull it out ready to go, in fact this would be a perfect effect to counter the inevitable line you get when doing any trick with money, "Can you do that with a tenner!!!" Imagine saying "Well actually..." and showing the impromtu comedian this minor miracle. That's actually why I bought the effect, it'll be handy to have in a pocket somewhere when I'm working, ready for just such an occurence.

Overall

A good 8/10, nothing to complain about at all and a solid dvd with everything you want or need to know.