talkmagic.co.uk

Oooooops! Sorry, I forgot that you were in Greece. The basic advice still stands about taking care on spending your money. You are meant to be a skilled magician not someone who just relys on costly and sometimes usless props.

Just a point . . I have never used Bicycle cards . . Bridge size Piatnics do me fine. It seems to me that if you are 'one of the boys' then you are almost expected to use Bicycles. "You can't do good card magic unless you use Bicycles!!!" is the cry from many. They seem to be regarded as the badge of office.

But then, as you are learning, I am a grump old duffer. Mark

Ok first wave of order has been fired !

I ordered :

-The 5 DVD set of Royal Road....

from world-of-magic.co.uk (49.99 pounds , free shipping , paid with credit card)

-Modern Coin Magic Book - J.B.Bobo
-Complete Course in Magic by Mark Wilson
-Some bicycle decks
-Invisible Deck
-Black Tiger deck (ok I just couldn't resist, it looks so nice)

from magictricks.co.uk (total of around 46 pounds, free shipping, paid through paypal)

The idea is to really study these ( I'm mostly into card and coin tricks).
After reading the complete course I will decide what else I would like to perform (sponges,cups, special decks, etc.) and proceed with the next (pure CUPS this time) wave !

I also downloaded the video of Kevin Parker's Passing Through as I mentioned (and really thinking of doing the same for Descent ).

Now I'm overexcited and waiting for the goods to arrive.

Thanks again everybody for their suggestions (you can post here anytime with more )

Mark Wynn wrote:It seems to me that if you are 'one of the boys' then you are almost expected to use Bicycles. "You can't do good card magic unless you use Bicycles!!!" is the cry from many. They seem to be regarded as the badge of office.

I don't know about other people, but personally I use them because they're cheap as chips and you can get a decent, cheap stripper deck in blue Bikes from USPCC, which makes them perfect.

I personally ordered them because most people use these.
i have many decks of KEM all plastic high quality cards but they are very very difficult to handle when doing tricks.

I use bicycle cards cause their harder than those plastic cards.. I hate those

and I also use em because of the supersmooth fanning ability when I just opened the deck..

I won't really give any sugjestions as to what to buy as everything you buy should be "you" but I will give you a sugjestio for "wave 2" of shopping. Buy everything except one book/DVD/trick with free shipping but get one thing in priority so you do not go crazy waiting and then go crazy reading and watching everything at once. This way you get to learn while waiting for your "main" package to arrive and also do not stress out when you don't know "where to start".

Just a little bit of advice so you don't learn the hard way how many brain cells you will kill by stressing over the volume of everything once it comes to your doorstep and not knowing where to start.

Good luck!
~David

You may be a little dissapointed with the brainwave deck. I would just grab an ID instead, maybe even 2 as they tend to get used up rather quickly. They are also less expensive, and offer a great effect.

Best of luck conquering CUPS!

In the same area as some others have mentioned, I'd counsel against something it's very easy to do when you're just starting in magic and have ordered a lot of stuff. When it arrives, you have a sort of feeding frenzy - pushing your face greedily into one thing, then racing on to the next. Please, please, please give the excellent RRTCM DVD the time it deserves. Watch it and re-watch it and re-re-re-watch. You'll get so much from it, really - and it's stuff you can carry with you everywhere too. That's to say, the Invisible/Brainwave deck is very nice, but you need to have the deck with you, and the second the person you've shown the trick to asks, 'Let me have a look at that deck,' you have to run away screaming.

While I'm here, can I just mention that I have a shameful fetish for signed books. One day, I pray, I will free myself of it. Until then, however, is there any way a person could get a signed copy of your stripper deck book, Tomo?

Thank you all for your constant advices !

I plan to study the RRTCM DVD a lot ! At my DVD player, at the DVD on my home PC, at the DVD on my Work PC (until I get fired )!
Card magic was what I always found most interesting (but for an unexplainable reason since I joined this forum I want to try everything).

Sexton Blake I agree that if I learn all the tricks,sleights etc that I can do with normal card decks it will be much better (however that ID looked irresistible).

I plan to study a lot in the little spare time that I have.

Definatly go with rrtcm and bobos coin magic and the decks of cards. I wouldnt bother with the hummer or floating match there fun to play with but not so much for laymen and the hummer is really quite inapropriate if someone just asked you to do something on the spot so you probally wouldnt get much use out of it.

Nightfall wrote:-Modern Coin Magic Book - J.B.Bobo
-Complete Course in Magic by Mark Wilson
-Some bicycle decks
-Invisible Deck
-Black Tiger deck (ok I just couldn't resist, it looks so nice)

from magictricks.co.uk (total of around 46 pounds, free shipping, paid through paypal)

First batch arrived (lightning fast I must add !! I placed the order on Thursday and I had them today (in Greece) !!).
Even performed a trick to some colleagues with the new decks. Both books look great , and it seems that i have a lot of reading to do

Nightfall wrote:
-The 5 DVD set of Royal Road....

from world-of-magic.co.uk (49.99 pounds , free shipping , paid with credit card)

Second batch arrived today ! Wow, both shippings where very fast !
I spent the whole afternoon yesterday reading parts of "Complete Course in Magic". What a book ! I guess that the RRTCM DVD set will be equally good.
I performed some tricks to my wife (from the book) and she loved them !
I also got a great reaction from her when I performed a trick with the ID !
Lot's of studying to do (and can somebody please stop me from adding and removing items from magic shops "My cart" )

deep breath ok, in through the nostrils, out through the mouth...

r-e-l-a-x.....

spend less, study more!

i remember how tempting it was/still is to blast a small fortune on stuff then only watch/read through once or twice, as the Blake said...invest the time in RRTCM book or dvd (both?!) and learn it all well...

or at least plan ahead, and buy yourself a charming (and large) wooden box to keep all your items in...

as an aside, and completely off topic (sorry) i have noticed that on occasion Mr. Sexton Blake shortens peoples first names, but 'tis unfortunate not something we can do in return...as we'd have to refer to him as "Sex"... :oops:

Just wait until you start dabbling with IT and TT's...finding the particular ones that work best for you will be a journey of anger and frustration until it clicks..then its pure heaven...

enjoy yourself!

Re Sexton Blake, abraxus wrote:we'd have to refer to him as "Sex"....

I already have on more than one occasion but I wouldn't go as far as calling him 'Sexy' !

Mandrake wrote:

Re Sexton Blake, abraxus wrote:we'd have to refer to him as "Sex"....

I already have on more than one occasion but I wouldn't go as far as calling him 'Sexy' :twisted: !

Bah. You're both jealous of my near-intoxicating allure.