talkmagic.co.uk

Anyone who's interested in getting into cups and balls, and is looking for a budget set could do worse than go in to John Lewis.

They do a set of gaming dice ("Gaming dice set in a black storage box") which contains six black faux leather shaker cups, which seem to be pretty suitable. The cups are cloth lined which should keep any unwanted noise to a minimum, they seem to stack well (check they stack appropriately for your choice of balls), and they have an indentation on the base, allowing you to place items on top without rolling off. The cups seem to be big enough to take reasonablely sized final loads (medium orange, lemon fits)

As a side issue, the set contains 30 dice (5 of red, white, yellow, black, green, blue), which could be usefuyl for colour changes, and all sorts of things, as well as a fairly sturdy storage box, and three small fake velvet drawstring pouches - handy for organising other props.

Seems pretty reasonable for £4 - and they look reasonably smart.

They are likely to be kept in the section with executuve toys & games, chess, scrabble etc, and probably will have a set open so you can check if they are suitable for your needs.

Sounds like a bargain - I think I'm getting C.U.P.S. for those cups !

Hehe, well at only £4 for what amounts to two sets of cups, C.U.P.S shouldn't do your wallet too much harm this time.

I suspect due to the stitched nature of these cups, and the cloth lining, they could also be easily gimmicked in the manner of chop cups, possibly even using velcro to hold the modification in place.

Do check they fit well with the balls you intend to use though - There's a fair amount of room when stacked (roughly an inch I think), but larger rigid balls might cause a problem. I'm using pompoms from a sewing supply shop at the moment, but while cheap, I'm not convinced they are ideal for some of the moves I want to do.

Aha, here they are, just so you can see what they look like:

http://www.johnlewis.com/Special+Offers ... oduct.aspx

Nice one. Details passed on to Mrs.M who was close to a store where they had 8 sets left. They now have 6 sets and I, via Mrs.M, have 2!

Goodness me - what are you going to do with 12 cups?!

...visions of a terrifyingly complicated routine...

Plus you're going to have more dice than a casino

Hope they work out well for you.

what are you going to do with 12 cups?!

I suppose I could open a coffee house or something

...visions of a terrifyingly complicated routine...

Good idea - I could produce enough fruit in the final load to restock a greengrocer's shop !

Thanks for posting that! Got myself a set today. Very impressive for £4!

Thank goodness for that - I am not alone!

Well three sets have disappeared from the stocklist on the website, and I can't imagine it's generally a popular item... Look out for people submitting cups routines in the file sharing section, all using suspiciously similar black cups.

Obviously they're not designed for the purpose, but most of the moves from Mr Ammars book seem to be doable with them (apart from a cup rolling over move, which is more of a flourish) - so they should be more than sufficient for basic routines, as long as they work well with whatever balls you have.

Given their stitched construction, I wouldn't recommend coffee production Mandrake, unless you use a glass to hold the liquid

Mandrake wrote:Thank goodness for that - I am not alone!

You certainly are not...it becasue I've got CUPS really badly at the moment. £100 iin a week! I am not a happy bunny!!

and NO I can NOT afford it!

Mrs.M returned home triumphant with these last night and I was so pleased I just couldn't contain my enthusiasm and had to offer her a brisk, manly handshake of thanks - it just doesn't get any better than that!

Actually the cups are even better than shown in the on-line photo and the fact that you also get dice in six colours tends to suggest that the cups and balls could be the cups and dice with larger and larger dice being produced towards the end. As Steverino mentions above, turning one into a chop cup would be easy peasy, just a question of selecting the right sort of 'power' gaff to use otherwise what goes in won't come out easily!

Regarding the chop aspect - using large chenille pompoms (looks like about 2 1/2", but fairly compressable), I have found that they can be jammed into place, and hold there fairly well without gimmicking, due to the fabric lining. I'm not yet sure how useful this could be, but traditional chop gimmicking would be easy anyway.

if £4 for you is too much then the best set of cups and balls are free

i think that if you get a couple of cups from coffe shops and some creamer, and there you have it free cups and balls.

i use this in my routine and it changes it from normal to unusual.

if you practice a routine with these you can preform instant impromptu cups and balls in a coffe shop.

cooll

yep, you can do some of the moves and effects with any cups, but the right choice of cups means you're a lot more flexible with how you do stuff.