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The El Duco/Leveridge Wallet Combo Vs David Penn's Executive Wallet

After managing to melt my JOL Fire Wallet into a rather unusuable shape, I figured it was time to get myself a new card to wallet effect. As I discovered, it's a minefield out there for any magician looking for a new wallet. There's many choices, for all budgets. I looked around on various forums for different opinions, and narrowed my search down to two wallets - The Executive Wallet by David Penn (£65.00 from World Magic Shop), and the El Duco/Mark Leveridge Wallet Combo(£75.00 from Mark Leveridge Magic), both were similar priced, promising high quality wallets, both used by their respective owners in the real world for some time, and both were no palm wallets.

The Effect

A classic of magic, and a great crowd pleaser. The magician asks an member of the audience to select and sign a card from a shuffled deck, which is returned and shuffled into the deck. Upon examining the cards, the spectator finds that their card has vanished, and the magician reveals that the signed card has made its way to a sealed compartment in his wallet.

The Blurb:

David Penn presents Roy Roth's Executive Wallet
With the Executive Wallet you can load the spectator's signed card into a wallet within a wallet without palming. The spectator can then remove their own signed card from the smaller wallet which is even secured with a press stud. As the spectator opens the wallet themselves this provides sure fire misdirection for your killer finale. The workings are all explained along with David's full routine on the accompanying DVD.
Crafted from the highest quality leather

The card is loaded into the innermost wallet with no palming in one natural action. No envelopes or messy sticky stuff to replace. Resets in 4 seconds.
David Penn's routine from his number one set is fully described on the DVD.

The El Duco/Leveridge Wallet Combo
When El Duco originally created the wallet for his card to wallet routine, it was done in order to offer a no-palm version in a hip style wallet design.

However, the way the wallet is loaded in fact opens up a wider range of possibilities than perhaps was first envisaged, and in this special set Mark Leveridge looks more widely at the wallet’s potential and provides no less than six routines which fully use the wallet’s design.

The routines are performed and full explained on a 60 minute DVD. Here are the details of the routines:

Paired Up - a signed genuinely freely selected card is placed sight unseen in the wallet and the matching colour and number card instantly magically turns face up in the deck.
Ocular Deception - an unseen card is shown to be sealed in the wallet and a freely selected card goes missing from the deck and is found to be the actual card held in the wallet.
Ambitious Card To Wallet - a totally commercial routine using a completely blank deck in which a card bearing a spectator’s name jumps to the deck top twice before ending up in the wallet.
Swap - two signed cards instantly change places even though one is sealed in the wallet and the other is placed reversed in the deck which is held by a spectator.
Tell Tale Signs - the special set of 12 cards is supplied to enable you to do an impossible prediction effect in which a card bearing the star sign of any spectator is found in the wallet.
No Palm Card To Wallet - Mark explains a straightforward way to use this wallet to perform a classic card to wallet without the use of any palming.

You receive the beautiful calf leather El Duco wallet, the 60 minute DVD and the set of special cards required for the routine Tell Tale Signs. This is a quality outfit that you will find versatile and a pleasure to use.

Cost: £75 for the El Duco/Leveridge Wallet Combo, £65 for the Executive Wallet



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)
2-3, depending on what routines you are using.


Review:

David Penn Executive Wallet

I''ll tackle the David Penn Executive Wallet first. The wallet arrives in a small black box, with its DVD in a plastic sleeve. It's instantly clear that the wallet is made of high quality leather. The wallet is designed for a breast pocket, and as such is a bit bigger than a hip-style wallet. The DVD is taught by David Penn and Craig Petty, who everyone will of course recognise from the Wizard Product Review. David's routine, which comes from his number one set, is a fantastic lesson in routining, brimming with magical moments. In fact, if you decided to make a drinking game out of this routine, there's every chance you would be drunk before the card itself was signed and returned to the deck. If you do not currently have a signed card to wallet routine, and you already have an intermediate skill in card magic, or are looking for some fresh ideas to inject into a card to wallet routine, this DVD is worth the price of the wallet alone.

While David Penn explains his routine, the sleights involved and any bits of business, I would recommend that you have an intermediate level of card handling skill to do this - moves are shown (not always up close enough to see what is going on if you don't already know the move), and the routine is discussed in details - but the teaching of the sleights is fairly basic, enough to give you a rough idea, but hardly a masterclass. In any case, the basic premise of the wallet, that is, to reveal a signed card inside a sealed luggage tag/pass holder inside the wallet is very easy to accomplish, if you are just looking for a signed card to wallet - the loading chamber is very easy to guide the card into, and definitely no sleights are necessary to get the card in there, just a little bit of basic routining.

So, in a nutshell, the wallet is high quality, the routine provided on the DVD is fantastic, and the wallet is easy to load, and the reveal is impressive. Overall, very highly recommended.

El Duco/Leveridge Wallet Combo

Next up, Mark Leveridge released the El Duco/Leveridge Wallet Combo at Blackpool this year. He originally reviewed El Duco's original routine in Magic Seen a few years back, and has brought the wallet out with a DVD featuring 6 practical routines. The wallet itself is extremely high quality - a hip style design, with a large, very easy to use load chamber. The wallet has 3 slots for credit cards inside, a divided compartment for notes, and a poppered change compartment where the card is revealed. It looks like a typical wallet, and putting a few credit cards and a couple of receipts in, you would never know it was gimmicked.

The design of the wallet itself is simple, but very clever - you can load a card in by palming, no palming, you can use it as a p**k wallet, and also as a switching device. For example, you could openly put a signed card in the wallet for safe keeping, have another card signed and selected which is put face down in a face-up deck, when the spectator turns the cards over, the original card is face up in the deck, and the second signed card is now in the wallet. Likewise, the wallet could be used to secretly load an additional stack of cards to a deck, like a card to wallet in reverse.

The DVD itself comes in a DVD case, and contains 60 routines, and lasts for 60 minutes. Like all of Mark Leveridge's filmed material, each trick is explained in great detail, each sleight is explained, and nothing is left to chance. There are some clever routines on the DVD, nothing earth-shattering, but good, practical material that I could - and indeed have - used in the real world to great effect. The package also includes 13 additional cards printed with the signs of the zodiac on them, for Tell Tale Signs, one of the included routines. The ambitious card routine on the DVD is a good introduction for anyone looking to try out this effect, and uses a double blank deck, which is not included. Only one of the six included routines does not involve palming in some way - while the wallet is an excellent no palm to wallet, Leveridge focuses - rightly so - on the other things you can do with the wallet. In a nutshell, do not overlook this wallet. The construction is excellent, and the load chamber is placed in such a way that it becomes an excellent utility device.

Which one is best?
While both wallets could be used by a beginner as far as loading the card is concerned, all of the routines involve basic to intermediate card handling. David Penn's routine has more magic in it than the 6 routines provided by Mark Leveridge together, however, the routine is complicated, and be prepared to put in a lot of practise to get it down. All the matierial has clearly been worked in the real world, and all is practical for any walk-about or close-up situation.

Both wallets are high quality, the El Duco wallet is better quality than the David Penn wallet, and given its construction, has more features. With the David Penn Wallet, you are limited to just a card to wallet effect - but having the signed card appear inside a leather pass holder inside the wallet is very magical indeed. With the El Duco wallet, you have a lot more scope, you can do a card to wallet, p**k etc. and the construction of the wallet lends itself nicely to other effects. Penn's one routine blows Leveridge's six routines out of the water - however it's a lot of work to learn, and you're going to have to look elsewhere for explanations of some handling if you don't know the moves already. All the effects provided on the Leveridge DVD are very good, all practical, and all taught in great detail.

Overall

Both wallets deliver the goods, David Penn's routine is the business. Any working pro looking for this one specific effect, with some great ideas to add to your own card routine would be able to get a lot out of the Executive Wallet. A beginner on the otherhand, is likely to be fairly confused with Penn's routine.

The El Duco/Leveridge combo is better constructed, and can be used in many more ways. While Leveridge's routines are not quite up to the same standard, all 6 offer solid, commercial material. You can be out performing in no time as they are shorter, and explained in great detail. To do David Penn's routine in full you'll need to get hold of an Omni-deck or Quarentine by Craig Petty. To fully perform all six of the Leveridge routines, you'll need a double blank deck.

A note on the reset - The Executive Wallet does require a reset if you're using the pass holder/luggage tag. 4 seconds is perhaps a stretch, maybe 6 or 7 seconds would be more realistic, but can be reset in front of an audience, as it just looks like you're fiddling with something in your wallet. The Leveridge Wallet doesn't need reset for any of the included routines.

El Duco/Leveridge Combo 9/10
David Penn Executive Wallet 8/10

Hope this helps anyone looking for a new wallet!