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Hello my mate is struggling to find black TTs, he has tried pretty much every magic shop and website in the world (his words not mine) and he cant find any.

He is caribbean so the backs of his hands are as black as the ace of spades but the palm is a lot lighter in colour. He has found brown TT's but nothing for black folk.

Anyone got any ideas?

Mancunian Lee wrote:Hello my mate is struggling to find black TTs, he has tried pretty much every magic shop and website in the world (his words not mine) and he cant find any.

Hmm, he hasn't tried that hard...

Cheap ("Afro-American"): http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/acatalog/Thumb_Tips.html

Expensive: http://www.magicnevin.com/products.asp?cat=152

I'm half expecting the usual stuff about how the colour doesn't matter, as the TT is never supposed to be seen, ignoring all the routines where you do actually have to have it at least partially visible some of the time. And ignoring the confidence issue too.

One other possibility is to paint a TT another colour using acrylics. This will work better on some types of plastic than others, but you can alter the colour to a closer match with a bit of work. Having said that, unless he has some suitable paints knocking around (I did back when I altered a very dark TT to be a bit more like my skin tone), it's probably cheaper to spring for a Fredi Up.

Of course, ideally, he'd go to a shop and try out TTs in different sizes and made from different materials, but we don't live in an ideal world.

Yep - tell him to stop worrying, and get a day-glo green TT!

Seriously, the TT should never be seen, if used correctly, so I'm always a little frustrated by this question; if your specs can see it, you've not practised enough to be performing with it.

I'll let some other kind soul tell you the story of the spun aluminium TT

He has the one from cards4magic,its more subtle on my pale skin than his!!

Ill point him in the direction of the magic nevin sites.

Thanks

Yes, that cheap one really isn't great (hence my suggestion of tweaking the tone with paint). Hope he likes the more realistic version.

I have seen some very realistic looking ones that come in all sorts of skin tones but can't remember where right now, I'll see if I can track them down for you.

A few years ago I visited The Magic Museum in Santa Cristinia, (http://www.xevi-ilusionista.com/" target="_blank ) where Xevi the magician houses his vast collection of magic props and memorabilia – well worth a trip if you’re in the area! Part of the collection is a large glass fronted bookcase filled with TTs of many different styles, materials and colours. Many are just so amazingly unrealistic it’s hard to believe anyone would get away with using them but, as they originally belonged to many of the great magicians of the last century, it’s clear they worked and worked very well indeed. Like many magic props and gizmos of years gone my they’re mostly home made out of tin, wood, ceramic and are painted in many different skin tones.

It’s really not so much what the TT looks like, although I see no reason to risk matters by using an one which stands out like a sore thumb ( ), but more they way it’s used. One piece of advice I had recently was when vanishing a silk in the hand, don’t move the hand with the TT, focus your gaze on and move the now empty hand away as that’s where the spec’s eyes will be following. You can casually drop the TT hand almost at leisure safe in the knowledge that the specs aren’t looking at it.

freddi up? they spam every now and again with stuff on realistic tips. You could always push the boat out and see if Tom still makes bespoke units. It means going to him.. but if you want the perfect tip, thats what you have to do.
Failing that , use the thing correctly. Becase to be fair, regardless of ethnic background, no tip matches exactly.

( and dont forget, the length of the thumb increases anyways, which tends to be the thing people notice first when they are not used correctly)

magicrob wrote:Yep - tell him to stop worrying, and get a day-glo green TT!
Seriously, the TT should never be seen, if used correctly, so I'm always a little frustrated by this question; if your specs can see it, you've not practised enough to be performing with it.
I'll let some other kind soul tell you the story of the spun aluminium TT

Nonsense !

Ive said it before and Ill say it again - The rule is outdated. The early TTs, as Mandrake pointed out, didnt resemble an actual thumb, either in colour, proper shape, or texture - the originals were nothing more than a painted thimble. At that time the proper technique did indeed mean that the tip was never seen - the tip simply HAD to be kept hidden because of the materials of the time. With modern materials there is absolutely no reason for this rule to carry on.

To say that ''with proper technique the tip is NEVER seen'' is wrong. By this reasoning guys like Michael Ammar, David Copperfield and Roger Klause have bad technique as all three of them flash the the tip and have poses that display at least part of the gimmick.

The tip should be a similar colour to your own tone, it doesnt have to be exact. If its not, or for some reason you are using one of the old types (and I see no advantage to using an old type) then you are missing out on some exellent routines with this gimmick.

The tt, along with the Exp***ed She**, are two of the greatest gimmicks ever invented for close-up magic in my opinion.

jim

Another factor of the 'good old days' is that theatre and parlour lightinng was quite dim compared to the sort of lighting we get these days. As such a lot of stuff, very obvious these days, would be disguised by the low lighting levels.

I used to carry a vernet in my pocket constantly long ago. Thing is they got dirty and kind of brownish. . . the perfect color for my chum Francis to use on his cocoa colored thumb so we'd split the cost on the things

The problem with ethnic tips is the wide variety of complexion; you have those that are light "coffee cream" and then those that (as my ex used to describe her deceased hubby) "are so black a lump of coal would make a white mark on them" and even at that there are other variables we Asian and Western European types rarely consider. I've known many that simply made a cast of their own thumb and made their own, learning how to mix paint or dyes in order to get that perfect match.

All of that said, the whole color thing on a tip means little in the hands of someone that knows how to use the thing. We had a summer long argument at the Magic Castle some years ago, about this very issue (started by Vernon and Larry Jennings) seems Vernon had a story about a guy so good with a tip that he literally wore a chrome plated one when he performed for magicians and was never caught. The contention got so heated that a long list of ridiculous array of TT routines surfaced using bright colors, metallic finishes and even nests of five or six tips on a single (albeit, very long) thumb.

Vernon won the argument; in the right hands and when used properly the color of the TT doesn't matter, it's all psychological and doubt of one's own skill.

Thanks, Craig; that was the story I was hoping somebody would post

Craigs post kind of proves my point. We are not performing 40 years ago nor are we performing (in the main) for other magicians. Using a chrome tip is the kind of smart @rseness that magicians seem to relish in so they can act smug if it fools their fellow magician. It is not the same as performing for the general public.

This nonsense seems to be quoted in almost every tt thread on here. So and so said it or someone read it somewhere. The damn thing is OUTDATED, and should be consigned to the same rubbish bin as the ''point to the hand that supposedly contains the coin'' cr@p.

Granted, there are certain effects where the gimmick isnt seen, but this is far from the rule. Magicians should be asking themselves WHY they are using the gimmick in the first place.

Lets take the classic b**l sw**ch as an example. We take out (or borrow) a £20 note, fold it up an when we open it again its transformed into a £5. Now what do you think your audience think has happened ? Any intellegent spectator is unlikely to think you REALLY turned their 20 into a 5, so they will look for a more mundane explanation. The most logical thing they will think of is a switch. They may not know how you actually did it but they will assume you must have, to them it is the only way it could have worked. The worst thing about this is that the explaination they will likely come up with is actually correct. So it stands to reason that we should be doing everything we can in our delivery and technique to make the idea of a simple switch seem impossible. Being able to show our hands empty (or flash, im not advocating prolonged exposure of the tip), especially both at the same time, can go a long way in making a switch seem impossible (as does keeping the bill always in view, but that is for a different thread).
The effect can be done without a tip, in fact its alot easier - It is very simple to hide a bill folded into eighths or sixteenths. If someone has gone to the extra trouble to learn a tt version and doesnt flash AT ALL then their time has been wasted. The ONLY advantage to using the tip in this effect is that you CAN flash.

Id be interested to hear from those who use the tt version of this effect and dont flash, as to why they are actually using the gimmick, as opposed to a tipless version.

While ive used the above effect as an example what im trying to say is not limited to this effect alone.

I realise i seem to be harping on about this and that some may see it as trivial. It really annoys me when this ''with proper technique the tip is never seen'' nonsense is quoted as gospel - it is not. Guys like Ammar, Copperfield, Klause, Sankey and Greg Wilson - magicians at the top of their game - have all realised the absurdity of carrying on with this ''rule'', and have came up with extremely deceptive handlings which rely, in part, on the tip being seen. Others would do well to do the same.

Years ago the rule was valid, but times have changed. We are not performing in 1965 any more.


jim

Craig Browning wrote:All of that said, the whole color thing on a tip means little in the hands of someone that knows how to use the thing.

But what was the argument? Was it "TTs must always be a fairly close match for the performer's skin" or was it "It doesn't matter what your TT looks like, because you can still do every single trick ever written for one, if your technique is right"?

If it's the former, then Vernon was right. If it's the latter, he was wrong (and I suspect wrong even back when he said it, as well as now).

Jim has made a very cogent explanation for why he's right. By the way, you can add Wayne Dobson to the list of performers whose routines include a "flash".

jim ferguson wrote: Id be interested to hear from those who use the tt version of this effect and dont flash, as to why they are actually using the gimmick, as opposed to a tipless version.7
jim

Different bills, denomination and currency. Etienne Pradier does a great routine turning £20 into euros (two tens), then Yen then others.