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(3 years ago my family and I went to Australia and purely by chance we found a little Magic shop in Melbourne who were moving premises and selling a lot of stuff off at low, low prices! One of the items I picked up there was this one which lay at the back of the Magic drawer waiting for inspiration to strike. Now it has, hence this review!)

Description:
Perspex Prediction

Cost & Availability:
£27.95 (October 2003) from www.emagictricks.co.uk (http://www.emagictricks.co.uk/product_i ... ts_id=1045)

Difficulty: A very easy 1
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used, 4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

Review:
This can be performed as a cabaret or small group effect but will play to larger audiences as long as they can see the props! What you get is a clear Perspex board, about A4 size and six cards - red back bikes in my case and I see most of the images illustrating this effect show bikes of one colour or another. There are columns of elastic bands arranged vertically on the board, three each side, so the six cards can be fixed firmly to the back of the board with the cards backs towards the audience. Turning the board round, the audience will see that all six faces are different. To start the effect, the magician makes a prediction and seals it in an envelope, which is clearly displayed, held by a member of the audience, or placed in a large Perspex Box over the River Thames for 44 days – it’s your choice. The methods of working from here on can be varied - either five cards are fairly eliminated until the remaining one is shown to match the prediction, or you can cut to the chase, get a number from 1 to 6 chosen by fair and random means – possibly by using a die? The choice can be changed as many times as you like but the final one is the one which matches - the other five cards are still shown to be all different.

Angles:
Props can be shown front and back but not handled, the prediction and envelope are innocent so are OK to hand out. A small slight could be used whereby the matching card out of the six can be handed out as well. Generally speaking, this is best presented from a ‘stage’ area where the specs are well to the forefront but there’s no reason why the Magician couldn’t move amongst the audience if appropriate to the room and layout – might be a worthwhile option.

Overall:
Deceptively simple so the presentation does all the work. There are many possibilities here for straight mentalism/drama/comedy etc – it’s up to you. As the board is clear and all the card faces are shown, the end result whereby you accurately predict the chosen card is very effective and impressive.

Ratings:
8/10 – Scoring was marked down a little mainly due to the relatively high price but the props are good and certainly worth it. This is a one result trick by definition but there’s scope for using the props in different ways to ring the changes. Not as versatile as a deck of ordinary Bikes in the hands of an experienced cardician but, then again, the same could apply to lots of effects! Having said that, you get everything you need, which is the board and six cards, anything else you can probably provide from existing stock! (My version was made by MAK Magic who proclaim these effects are made in Europe. So they must be good – OK?!)

It's just occurred to me that you could arrange for a spec to cut to a card or some other method whereby a card is chosen and kept a secret known only to them. You can then use your mentalist powers to eliminate five cards with suitable questions and comments thus leaving one card only. It will match the spectator's card - if you do it right.