talkmagic.co.uk

I am a new member here (and an enthusiastic newbie at magic) who has recently started trying out ball manipulation. To that end, I have acquired a set of Mirage balls which are fine but I do keep reading about Fakini balls and was wondering whether they are any better than Mirage. My only grouse about Mirage is that the shell is quite thick. So, can anyone tell me whether Fakinis have thinner, less obvious shells? Maybe that's why so many people seem to endorse them.

I would like to known this too! Also, how to get my hands on some Fakinis? I emailed them in America but got no reply.

TDGinge wrote:I would like to known this too! Also, how to get my hands on some Fakinis? I emailed them in America but got no reply.

From what I've read, there seems to be several US outlets that can supply Fakinis so I suppose you would have to try a few of them to see which would supply outside of the US. Of course, id someone here can answer my question about the thickness of the shell compared to Mirage then the problem might go away if it turns out that Fakinis aree no thinner.

One US firm who happily ships to the UK is Stevens Magic and they have a section on Fakini products ( http://www.stevensmagic.com/index.php?m ... ord=fakini" target="_blank" target="_blank ). Mark Stevens is a very helpful guy and if you have any questions he'll be able to help. Their shipping costs are very reasonable as well.

fakinis are tactile. I love em.

but remember that the audience only sees the shell from straight on, so the thickness of the shell, doesnt realy matter that much.In fact, a member of my club, used to be a ball manipulator, and recently gave a talk on balls, and one of the things he did was to place a small amount of packing into the centre of teh shell, to stop it from fitting snugly. it makes removal, and loading much easier.

Mandrake wrote:One US firm who happily ships to the UK is Stevens Magic and they have a section on Fakini products ( http://www.stevensmagic.com/index.php?m ... ord=fakini" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank ). Mark Stevens is a very helpful guy and if you have any questions he'll be able to help. Their shipping costs are very reasonable as well.

Thanks I'll check that out.

daleshrimpton wrote:fakinis are tactile. I love em.

but remember that the audience only sees the shell from straight on, so the thickness of the shell, doesnt realy matter that much.In fact, a member of my club, used to be a ball manipulator, and recently gave a talk on balls, and one of the things he did was to place a small amount of packing into the centre of teh shell, to stop it from fitting snugly. it makes removal, and loading much easier.

I take your point that the thickness shouldn't matter but I suppose two things prompted me to wonder whether thinner shells might be available.

Firstly, the thicker the shell the more one has the inevitable problem that it simply looks slightly bigger than the balls (a similar issue to that with expanded shells in coin magic of course). Now, I know one can compensate for that in various ways but if thinner shells are available that would be another small problem dealt with.

The second issue is that when the shell contains a ball, I have found that, subject to the lighting and the proximity of the audience, I can in fact safely flash the palm side of the hand holding the balls without anyone spotting the edge of the shell as long as I keep the hand moving and keep the whole move brief. Again, if the shell were thinner, I could let the flash "linger" for a little longer.

Anything to make life easier I say.

if you twist your wrist to flash the back of the ball, the leading edge where the shell lies, is always going to be facing away from the audience. the rest being hidden by the fingers.

Foxlute wrote:Firstly, the thicker the shell the more one has the inevitable problem that it simply looks slightly bigger than the balls...

But surely it's the height of realism for one ball to be slightly bigger than the other?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I was sure someone in the UK was selling Fakini billiard balls not that long ago, but they are no longer listed on the site, so I suppose the supply dried up. You might want to consider the Fakini golf balls too. Actually, the ones I saw being sold might have been golf balls, rather than billiard balls; it's a long time since I did anything like the multiplying balls trick, so I didn't pay too much attention.