by Mandrake » Nov 23rd, '04, 14:18
The Effect: KIDS KARDS by Richard Pinner
(made by Royal Magic/Fun Inc Chicago, Kards printed in Belgium)
Cost: Varies from £10.95 to £11.99 - plus P&P
From: Alakazam, JBTV, Magicbox, Magicshop, Cards4magic, Magictricks.co and probably many others!
Difficulty: 1 approaching a 2 but only because you need to do a control rather than a sleight. Not really all that difficult as this deck uses a combination of three well-known and well used features so will be very familiar to most.
(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)
Examinable: Nope!
The Blurb: A group of children that you did a show for have made you a unique and special gift as a thank you. Wonderful though this is, it’s not a lot of use for performing with. So using your special powers you set about changing one card, then the whole deck into a more familiar and useful design. With the brand new deck you demonstrate your skills with a little mind reading. However, racked with guilt at ruining the young ones’ beautiful present you set about returning it to its former, if unconventional, glory.
Each Kids Kards deck comes complete and ready to work. The artwork on the "kid" cards is charming - both the faces and backs have been custom printed and are perfectly in tune with the patter story of children designing a deck of cards. The trick is nearly self-working, the deck does all the work for you.
Review: This is good and by 'good' I mean in the sense that Cardtoon or Cardtoon 2 is good because it's charming as well. The storyline of the children making the cards is excellent and the cards are produced in exactly the way young children would do them - front and back. I was initially disappointed when transforming them into real cards as they aren't Bikes but that was stupid of me because they don't need to be Bikes for two reasons - 1) because you transform them back to kids kards at the end and 2) well, let's just say that part of the routine depends on it. Despite the claim that this comes 'ready to work' you need to set up the deck to start with but the instructions are very easy to follow. There's even a separate card to stick on the cardbox which is illustrated by a child and, in multicoloured kids' writing, says 'To the Magishun Thank You for the show'. (Which matches a lot of the spelling seen here on TM from time to time!)
The broad effect is that you show the kids kards front and back, get a spec to select one, show this as a kids card, rub on back of hand and change to a real card, show that all the deck is still kids kards, transform all to real cards, dribble cards from one hand to another, get spec to say stop whenever they like (a genuine choice) bring your mental powers into play and divine what that card was without seeing it, replace that card and immediately transform the whole deck back to kids kards.
Value for money: 9 out of 10
C.U.P.S.Rating: 7 out of 10 (for me it was a 10 based on reading the blurb!)