talkmagic.co.uk

Consignment – by James Howells and Wizard FX Productions

Price - £19.99
Format – DVD and gimmick construction
Available from – www.worldmagicshop.co.uk

What they say:
For years magicians have been making signed cards appear in envelopes. Consignment has taken a giant leap forward with this effect! The ingenious gimmick means that the envelope can be out on the table before the card is even selected. This is definitely out of the box thinking.
The magician introduces a small envelope that is left in full view on the table. Next, a card is selected and signed by the spectator. The card is then lost in the deck and the deck is slipped back into the box and placed in the magician’s pocket. The magician then draws attention to the envelope on the table. The envelope is opened and the signed card is found inside! It’s that direct!
Any card can be signed. The envelope is in full view throughout. It all happens right under the spectator’s nose and they don’t suspect a thing.
Consignment comes with gimmicks and an instructional DVD shot in full HD.

What I say:
Well, to be honest, I have loved this effect ever since seeing the demo video, it looked so clean, so visual, and best of all, it looked easy to do. I received the DVD, and I’m happy to say that it is all of the things I thought it would be. The effect itself is diabolical in method, and super easy to execute. Any magician with even a basic skill level and knowledge will be able to perform this effect within an hour or so of constructing the gimmick.
The construction of the gimmick is probably the hardest part of this effect, luckily the gimmick construction is a one of set up (although I would imagine that if you use this effect regularly that you will have to remake it every now and then, however the bits that do the work are easily transferable across) and the DVD includes the necessary PDFs to construct the gimmick. The DVD thoroughly teaches the construction step by and doesn’t miss out a single detail. It took me about 20 minutes to make up the envelopes.
Now, there is one little thing I didn’t like – you will have to modify a card case to perform this effect in its cleanest manner. However, an alternative is also taught on the DVD. As I said, this is only a little issue, which just means you will have to be careful with your card case, but a bit of pocket management and spectator management and you shouldn’t have any problems.

Overall
This is a very clean effect, which could possibly be the best ending for an ambitious card routine. What you will need to remember is you are not buying a full long routine, you are buying a very strong effect, which could be used in conjunction with pretty much any existing card routine. This will be working its way into my professional set within the next few days without doubt, and I imagine it will become a main-stay for me.

Out of Ten?
I would have to give this effect a strong 8.5 out of 10. It only loses points for me due to the necessity to have an adapted card case, but I will be workshopping this effect myself to see if I can come up with an alternative.

Hiya,

thanks for this review. have been 'umming' and 'arring' about this one for a few days.

im not so sure i like the idea of all the setup and 'cutting and sticking' (i was rubbish at Art at school)

Aslo my pa*m is not so great (MODS delete if needed) - does this matter?

Cheers

magicj wrote:
Aslo my pa*m is not so great (MODS delete if needed) - does this matter?

Practice it then.

Lenoir wrote:

magicj wrote:
Aslo my pa*m is not so great (MODS delete if needed) - does this matter?

Practice it then.

Touche'

i try and avoid it where possible, i just feel uncomfortable and can't get to 'grips' with it. (Pun intended)

anyway, i like consignment alot, think it's a really nice effect.

The palm is an essential of magic, it's one of 4 sleights that I use regularly. I strongly recommend you learn to palm


Mark

I've taken some time to really focus on it and tried different ways etc, and have done it several times in performances, im just not confident using it.

could you recommend a Good dvd / book that could help me along with this?

(sorry to go off-topic)

I received my consignment today.

i like it since i see consignment teaser it look so clean and visual sign card to envelope.

i think the beauty of this trick u can set up consignment from your fave playing card.
hmm i mean not only use bicycle u can use like angle playing card etc
because mostly magic card g*****k use bicycle
and in my country if u bring bicycle people will notice that is a magic card with special card.

@magicj

my p**m is not so great too
but this effect use very very simple p**m

just do you fave ambitious card routine and for the finale you can use consignment.

Ye, i've been working on it. my Palm is fine actually. its the confidence of using it. but i think im OK.

i do rele like the look of this but i have Hawk 2.0 or riser deck for my ending. ATM however im using my Real Mans Wallet

Thanks for the comments, for anyone interested here is the original short teaser put together 4 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Wlhw2vUAE

Got my one a couple of weeks ago as a payday treat for myself. Have to say I'm really impressed. The method is incredibly slick and has obviously been beautifully refined by James Howells. After a minimal amount of practice, the effect is exactly as smooth as it looks in the trailer.

As mentioned above, there is a bit of DIY involved before you're up and running and it's also possible that you may not have everything immediately to hand that you need to construct the gimmick. However the instructions on the construction process given on the DVD go into massive detail, and you should only be a quick trip to Staples away from having everything sorted

Definite 10/10. A genuinely baffling conclusion to an ACR and £20 very well spent!

Thanks Darth, glad you enjoyed it.

Having purchased a lot of cack over the years, as a wannabe magician, the buzz (or hit, if you will) you first had when you found out the secret to the ID, for instance, has dwindled with most successive purchases and most purchased effects are simply a lacklustre response of sheer indifference, sometimes to the point you don't actually think it will work its way into you core effects.

Consignment, refreshingly, has an ingenious method that actually made me excited about using it. I think part of the fun lies in the fact that whilst, as magicians - specifically when purchasing marketed effects rather than creating your own original routines - our main goal is to amaze, a lot of the fun is to do sleights right under the spectator's nose and the ensuing satisfaction in pulling it off. Consignment achieves the sense of fun and DOES amaze. It is not as difficult as people may have made out on other forums. Under misdirection when there is no heat burning your hands, it all flows, although with 8 gimmicks as opposed to the 4 it does work a WHOLE lot better.

Perhaps I am overly pedantic, but I often find myself suffering from magician's guilt when it comes to gimmicks and also card cases. When performing a deck switch I get overly preoccupied with whether the two decks look similar, and will go to extremes to matching them. What I love about Consignment is that the creator provides templates for the envelopes meaning you can replace them from time to time, giving you that shiny radiance when everything seems fresh and in its right place. Perhaps it is a form OCD, as in other aspects of life I honestly am very laid back.

I'm not sure what would be better but it would certainly be easy to have a spectator hold the envelope on their hand as a table at the start of a card routine, rather than on a table, which means you can emphasise how fair it has been in their hands.

As to ideas, I've yet to try the epic idea out, but I'm thinking of an ambitious card style marathon, which involves multiple climaxes, at which the magician can decide at each stage whether he is milking it too much or wants to expand, with the envelope almost forgotten about by everyone till the end.

Starting off with some passes and an ultra short short ambitious card routine (as the following marketed effects would take the idea of ambitious card and build on the idea of the card-to-impossible location plot) I'm thinking of proceeding with Wow 2 Face Down, followed by revealing the Consignment envelope. Then Extractor card to shoe. I'd like to somehow fit Michael Ammar's Card To Ceiling In there (last, logically), but frankly each of these climaxes are strong effects in themselves. Plus one needs to actually practice the toss in Card to Ceiling. I don't know what your take on combining different effects are, as personally I'm happy to perform Consignment and Extractor as separate effects, so not sure if you performers would think doing such preposterous things to a single signed card in quick succession would be overkill...?

Overall Consignment leaves you feeling like a cheeky imp, and your spectator amazed.

Also the construction is super easy and you will find it equally easy to find the stuff you need at a stationary shop.

Thanks for the kind words Rufio. Im glad you liked it.

Great review. The product looks awesome. Totally clean.

Can someone tell me whether or not you can perform this in short sleeves? I think probably you can but if someone can confirm that, that would be great.

Another point...

Would be hard to decide when to use this and when to use card to wallet. I guess this is cleaner because the card is in the wallet and the envelope is on the table? So, do card to wallet when there's no table?

Or... do card to wallet then maybe do card to envelope after? You could say that that's overkill but actually I think it would work really well. It was already impossible and this is even more possible. More to the point, the envelope was on the table EVEN WHILE THE CARD WAS APPEARING IN THE WALLET. Kind of an added dimension rather than just taking things a bit further. Like the two effects were happening at the same time.