Hi guys,
I'm pretty happy after a sweet win on eBay for a much sought after himber wallet, but also slightly annoyed because I thought I'd bid on another wallet - I hadn't, and it went for £6 - I would have paid a bit more than that for it!
It is vintage item by the looks of it, called the "Baffling Billfold", manufactured by the Supreme Magic Company, who seem to have gone out of business in various guises a hundred times! I've totally failed to come up with anything current on that front.
The advert suggested that it was basically a switching wallet, but an examinable one. I can only imagine that the mechanics somehow allowed it to draw the first card etc. inside a sealed compartment or the lining or something; the changed item was placed behind a clear ID window.
I wondered if anyone (and I'm looking to our respected older members here particularly, don't think they sold it on Ellusionist
) has come across this in the past, or knows of a similar type of wallet, and if so, how useful or successful it is? It sounds absolutely great, but I also feel that if concept was a real hit it would have taken off much more and there would be modern day equivalents etc. using the same principle which leads me to suspect it was flawed in some way.
I was shown a haunted mentalist effect by Roger Curzon once, the prototype of which involved a wallet that would switch something by the opening/closing action. However, it seemed a bit unwieldy and was apparently quite expensive, he decided to develop the effect so it could be made at a much more reasonable price.
Any knowledge greatly appreciated!
