From the moment you open the package the trick screams ‘class’. It comes in an elegant presentation box, sealed with a real coin – in our case an ‘old’ five pence piece. Open up the box, and you are presented with a Bicycle Card box and a small black envelope sealed with a stylish clip. Although these things are irrelevant to the trick itself, they are signs of the great care that has gone into the production of this effect – in our experience a relatively rare feature in modern magic marketing.

The instructions are a simple A4 sheet with 8 stylish illustrations and clear text underneath. In addition to explaining the mechanics of the effect, there are some tips on keeping it working well, and each one appears to be individually signed and approved by Jamie. He also supplies extra thoughts and tips by email to any purchasers.

Jamie is clearly someone who loves his art (back in 2009 we raved about his wonderful Bicycle Cards in a glass bottle – which are still available) and he has taken great care to produce a wonderful product. It is based on the old (though still great) matchbox penetration – but is bigger and better and made of steel not brass.

What do we think?

For a non-smoker, using a card case rather than a matchbox makes much more sense for me. And it makes the whole thing more visual – you could use it at a table and folk across the table would be able to appreciate the effect.

It is beautifully made, and is certainly going to withstand reasonable inspection. The mechanism is already good – and I suspect will improve with use.

We struggled to use it with a coin, which feels a little wide for the working. But we like the idea (and it seems kind of logical) that we saw on the World Magic Shop review of this trick – using a folded playing card to push through the box.

Minor quibbles for the walkaround context which is my domain:

But all in all it is a lovely effect. If you switched in the box you could use it as a SPECTACULAR finale to any card routine. It comes highly recommended and is available direct from Jamie at http://www.sendwonder.com/ for $125 + shipping.

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