Cost:$30
http://itricks.com/store/
The Effect: The magician asks for a volunteer to help him. This volunteer faces away from the rest of the audience and the magician. The magician shows a selection of blank business cards to the audience and talks about the various professions he might have had if he wasnt a magician. The volunteer selects one of the cards and is shown it without the audience or magician being able to see the 'face' of it.
The magician takes out a pen and on one of the blank cards writes down a prediction. He then puts it in his pocket an asks/tells the spectator about the card they 'saw'. A name, profession, colour and number are all correct. The prediction and the rest of the blank cards are left with the spectator.
My Views: I don't like this effect because if its sucker aspect. When the spectator rejoins the audience, he/she will be utterly convinced that they saw a printed business card. The rest of the audience are utterly convinced all the cards are blank.I'd prefer that spectators feel pleased for being a part of my act and not like I've made them out to be a fool.
Secondly, the number on the gimmick is a US phone number!!! I live in the UK, so that immediately looks suspicious. To use this effect, I'd have to make another gimmick myself or alter the patter to cover the discrepency (which neither Andrew or Christopher advise doing, at least not at first). I also think the gimmick looks a little 'cheap', not like what it is pretending to be
There are some good points though. The instructions are very comprehensive and the photos are reasonable quality.The audio CD is interesting, but I don't think it really adds anything to the package, its basically a radio interview with a magician called Christopher raving about it.
Finally a good and bad point, this effect takes some time to get around to the predicted information. I prefer something snappier like a mental epic routine or Osterlinds Sterno ESP. Then again if youve got to do a 40 minute act, you might be greatful that it takes about 15minutes.
Overall, I'd give it 5/10 You'd be far better reading a mentalism book and creating your own 3 phase routine