Strange Travellers by Paul Harris
The Effect
You show someone a batch of twenty cards.... all different.
You give her ten of the cards to hold.
You now have her think of one of the remaining ten cards. She never says a word. No one except her know what card she's thinking of.
These ten cards are counted again. Strangely.... there are now only nine.
The one card she'd been thinking of has vanished! She's still only thinking of her card... I'ts never been named out loud!
She counts the ten cards she's been holding... ten cards you haven't touched since the beginning.
But now she has eleven cards!
The strange traveller has arived... her thought-of card is now staring her in the face!
Cost
$19.95 from here
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)
I would say this is a 1 once you have got it down, but initially its a 2 because there are certain things you need to remember, which become second nature after a while.
Review
I opened this up and looked at the supplied cards first. I still couldnt figure it out. I read the instructions through once. I still was a bit confused. I read through the instructions with the cards in my hands and a light bulb went off in my head. As soon as i had recovered from the shards of glass and the throbbing headache, i realised how wonderfully brilliant this whole trick actually is!
There are TWO moves in this entire trick, and they're both the easiest moves that i can possibly think of! The supplied cards are of excellent quality. My set came in red backed bikes, i dont think you can request a different colour but it wouldnt be hard for you to simply make the set into a different colour if you so wish!
The instructions are brilliant quality. They're NOT on a DVD as i first thought, but it doesnt matter. The booklet goes through every little step easily and precisely. There is one method described that uses a table to spread the cards on. The second is for walk around magic where all you have a deck, and the air in front of you to attempt to spread the cards on.
It is this second method that has caused confusion amongst buyers of the trick. On the Ellusinist website, it says this:
Can be performed with or without a regular deck
What this means is that you can do the trick with the aid of a regular deck, but you cant just get a regular deck, take 20 cards out of it, and perform the trick. You can basically put the supplied cards into a regular deck and remove them if you want to perform the trick whilst moving around. I haven't performed it this way yet. I like the tabled version. Its very easy to do. The cards are already set up in a black wallet and ready to go!
Oh, i nearly forgot this bit! It also comes with detailed instructions on how to perform 'Anytime Travellers'. Basically you can start a performance, take out your cards and do any tricks that you want before performing this with that same deck. Its hard to explain without exposing too much, but it's called 'The Strange Case Solution'. The details for this are once again very good quality and easy to follow.
Overall
I love this effect! Its great! If you already have it, burn it! If you dont have it, don't buy it! I WANT THIS ALL FOR MYSELF!!!
Out of 10, i'd give this a ............. 9.9.
It lost 0.1 of a mark for confusing me into letting me think i can do it with just any old cards, and im still bitter about it!