Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Time For Me to Fly by REO Speedwagon
Review of Page Voucher from SansMinds
$35 bucks, one coupon book and 15 minutes of instruction . . . should you? Or shouldn't you?
Effect
A spectator "selects" a page from your pocket coupon book. You read her mind and tell her details (as much or as little as you want) about her "selection." The effect shown in the video demo is exactly what it looks like. It's very clean and very fair seeming.
Method
The coupon book does all the work for you. You just have to bring your best personality/presentational skills. The book allows you to very clearly show all the different coupons. Yet, the spectator will still be "under your control." The method is super simple, and one that you're familiar with. Anyone can do this. Further, there's a nice built in subtlety that further sells the "fairness." After the book is opened to the place the spectator chooses, you clearly show them their chosen coupon. Then you can riffle the rest of the book to show that there were tons of choices. It's very clean and very convincing.
The hard part of the method is bringing your personality to it. You've got to really sell it as mind reading and surprisingly in the very short 15 minutes, you are given some really good tips on how to do this. It's nothing new for mentalism veterans, but for anyone else, this is invaluable information.
Ad Copy Integrity
The ad copy is legit. I should clarify one point, however. It claims that they can think of "anything." That's true as long as it's anything on the coupon that they "selected." The video trailer is very honest and accurate. 100% score here.
Product Quality
The coupon book is well made and looks like a real coupon book. However, none of the coupons are for real businesses, so when flipping through the coupon book, there is a possibility that this may be noticed. It's particularly a problem if they happen to look too closely at the coupons and discover "Burger Queen" and "Benny's" and "OrangeBees", etc. Many of them are parodies of real restaurants and businesses. The gimmick itself works beautifully, and the illusion is perfect.
The DVD is very short, but well produced and covers everything clearly enough . . . almost . . . There is an alternate handling explained. It was a bit confusing to follow, but still followable.
Final Thoughts
All in all, not too shabby. If you like the idea of carrying around a coupon book to be ready to perform this, then you'll be glad you got this. Keep in mind that this kind of thing is probably better suited to a more informal performance but it could also work in a more formal setting. You might need a little more justification for the prop in a formal setting, but not much. Everything's well made, well taught and well put together, so if you like the effect and can see yourself performing it, I'd definitely recommend it.
Final Verdict:
4 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem.
5 Comments
NO way is this worth 4 stars-if the participant wants to change their mind and select another coupon-THEY CANT, YOU can NOT repeat this-its the same outcome each time. The participant cant handle the book as exposure is imminent. You can only do it for 1 participant at a time and the cost is WAY TOO HIGH.
The coupons are fake. This could have been enhanced by simplY adding a second or third outcome. A slight alteration to the svegali principle could force 2-3 possible outcomes.
MJ – thanks for post. I don’t review products based on whether it’s a good trick or not. I don’t base it on whether I like the trick or would do the trick. I base it strictly on if the product is what they claim it is. If the gimmick is well made, if the advertisement is honest. The answer to all of those is yes.
I respect your opinion, and I have no problem that you (and others) disagree with my reviews at times. However, I will say that almost everything you didn’t like about the coupon book could also be said about a Svengali deck.
The spectator can’t change their mind and select another card. It’s the same outcome every time, and the participant can’t handle a Svengali deck as exposure would be imminent. Yet I would guess that you would say that a Svengali is a good product.
You are correct that they could have set it up to force more than one, but it’s tough to review a product based on what it isn’t when they never claimed it to be anything but what it is.
The Svenagli deck is cheaper for sure, but it’s a different product and a different manufacturing process and does not come with a DVD. It’s a little on the pricey side, but that’s part of the reason I gave it four stars instead of five.
As I usually say in my reviews, if you like the effect and think you would do it, then it’s worth it.
If you don’t like the effect or don’t think you would do it, or would prefer to have more forces, then don’t get it. I don’t attempt to guess if people will or won’t like the effect. That’s a personal choice.
Anyway, keep the comments coming. I like to keep the discussion open. It gives my readers more information to make their decision.
I agree wholeheartedly with MJ. Magicians are looking for reviews that would help them decide if this is something they might want to perform. I don’t know if you are a dealer, but your review comes across like a dealer review. While I appreciate that sort of review for what it’s worth, here is my review as a USER:
This effect could have been designed to have 2 or 3 different outcomes, not just one. I also think that it would have been better if they didn’t include coupons that look like a national chain but are spelled differently. For example, Burger King becomes Burger Queen and the logo looks similar.
I think a much better mentalism routine would be to use business cards or similar small cards, a pen, and a peek wallet.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 4.
@KJ – Thanks for the feedback. I’m not a dealer. I don’t sell any of the products I review. My criteria for a review has nothing to do with whether or not I would use it. I basically don’t do coin tricks ever, but I certainly could not give a coin DVD a bad review based on the fact that I wouldn’t do the tricks. As for whether or not any of my readers would do the tricks, that depends on whether or not they’re “coin people.”
There is no way for me to know that about my readers. So instead, I’ve opted to focus on product quality, and ad copy claims for the most part. The written part of my review gives the details regarding any “points of consideration” before making a purchase (such as the “Burger Queen”, “Benny’s”, etc.).
The actual star rating itself is based on
1) Is it what they say it is?
2) Will it do what they say it will do?
3) Is the gimmick constructed well?
In every case for this product, the answer was yes. They never claimed that it could do more than one reveal. So I can’t judge them for not including that. By that standard I’d have to give all products a bad review simply because it didn’t do other stuff that I would have wanted. I can’t give an Invisible deck a bad rating because I wanted the named card to be a different colored back than the rest of the pack.
The trick is what it is. Any given magician will either like the effect or they will not like the effect. They saw the effect as is in the trailer. If they like that one effect, then they’ll be happy because that’s exactly what they’re getting . . . that one effect, exactly as it claims to be.
You are correct that having multiple reveals would have been better, and you might be right about business cards, peek wallets, etc. and I can think of a hundred other tricks that are better.
I loved David Williamson’s Ridiculous, but I thought the Stars of Magic DVD set was a ton better. But just because something else is better doesn’t mean that I have to give Williamson’s set a bad review because it’s not as good as Stars of Magic.
I gave it four stars strictly on quality of prop and the fact that what you see is what you get. Dig through the site here, you’ll find a lot of stuff that a lot big names are endorsing that I gave very poor ratings to because the quality of the product was crap or even unusable (case in point: https://magicreviewed.com/products/tru-test-u-f-grants-modern-magazine-test/).
This gimmick is very usable, works well, is good quality construction, and it does exactly what SansMinds says it will do exactly as easily as they say it will do it. And if someone is ok with a coupon book that has fake names and only does one reveal who am I to say they can’t buy it.
As always, written words often sound harsher than they are, so please know that none of what I said above was spoken with any malice. It’s purely for the sake of discussion and clarifying my perspective.
Thanks for reading!
One other thing I forgot to mention is that using actual brand name products would be trademark infringement, so I understand why they used fake logos.