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European Coinmagic Symposium Review

A dozen effects and $35 bucks. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.

Effect/Method/Teaching Quality

It's a collection of coin tricks, so the standard stuff is what you'll find.

• Giacomo Bertini - Matrix Colors
• Daryl - The Mysterious Cross of India
• Francis Tabary - Three Coins Routine
• Miguel Angel Gea - Spanish Wild Coin
• Eric Jones - Enigma Change
• Antony Gerard - Static Attraction
• Francesco Addeo - Behind The Backs
• Roberto Giobbi - Giobbi On Convergence
• Shigeo Futagawa - China Money
• Jean Emmanuel Franzis - Cylinder & Coins
• Michael Rubinstein - Oil & Water
• Jerome Bourgeon - Three Fly

The methods use sleight of hand and/or coin gimmicks. I'll give you a quick run through of any highlights that I feel are worth mentioning. However, before that, let's address a few general items. Generally speaking, the teaching was pretty decent. You get a range of English, Dubbed over English and Broken Accented English. Some are more clear than others. Where there are any major issues, I'll point them out below. As for the effects, there is nothing really new or revolutionary here. Basically, you're getting the handling of standard classic plots. Further, the performances for the most part of typical of what I hate about most coin magic. It's an overly detailed and grossly verbose narrative of what is happening.

For example, in Bertini's matrix, he spends what seems like an eternity describing the location of the four cards on top of the four coins. Several times he points to, picks up and rearranges the cards to show you and tell you what card is where. It was overkill, but the problem is that it was required for the method to work. That, in my mind, makes it a weak method.

Daryl's effect is a simple coins across routine that is very deceptive and uses virtually no sleight of hand and only borrowed coins. Tabary's effect makes use of a very clever way of concealing up to three coins in your hands while very clearly showing them to be palm up with fingers spread and totally empty, yet you're hiding three coins. He uses it in the context of a vanish and reappearance of three coins.

Miguel Angel Gea's wild coin was simple and relatively visual. It uses two gimmicks, one that you probably have, and one that you definitely don't. It looks like a custom gimmick that he made. He never explains how to make it or where to purchase one.

Eric Jones gives us a very beautiful and deceptive color changing coin move. It's very simple to execute and can be mastered with very little practice. It's slightly angle-sensitive, but he addresses how to cover this making it a very practical and simple coin move.

Gerard's effect is a simple four coins across routine that has a few nice added touches of choreography to make the moves more invisible. He also has a few clever touches on the pop up move that make it much more deceptive.

Next up, a card trick by Addeo. I'm not sure why it's on the European Coinmagic Symposium DVD. It's a barehanded product of the Aces. It was actually very beautiful and very deceptive. The method, in general, is not too complicated. However, there are two main parts of the method that were not very clearly taught. So you, likely, won't be able to do the effect after watching the DVD.

Roberto Giobbi performs a contrived card and coin routine that doesn't really feel very mysterious. The method is taught in great depth, and it does have a novel plot — finding a lucky card. But it feels very long.

Futagawa performs a coin production that uses some clever techniques to conceal the coins. It allows for an infinite production of coin after coin. However, anytime during the routine, you can stop producing infinite half-dollars and product a Chinese coin, followed by a slightly bigger Chinese coin, followed by a jumbo Chinese coin. The nice thing about this is that it only uses the three Chinese coins and two half-dollars, and the set up is to simply have all five coins in your right pocket. It's relatively easy to do and doesn't take up a lot of pocket space. The only negative here was that the instructions were a bit hard to follow due to a bit of a language barrier. However, you'll get what you need relatively easily.

Franzis performs a version of Ramsay's Cylinder and Coins. It didn't really add much to the effect, and in some ways it took away from it. It was confusing and ended in such a way that it kind of tipped the method. There was, however, a clever technique for openly dropping a coin through the top of the cylinder yet somehow the coin ends up underneath the ball that was already inside of the cylinder — he uses a ball instead of a cork.

Rubinstein performed Oil & Water with coins rather than cards. The problem with this effect is that I could not see it at all. It all pretty much took place inside of his very not-open hands. The ending was very clever and I could see that part of the routine. The moves taught in this effect may come in useful in other coin work as well.

Lastly is Bourgeon's handling of three fly. What's unique about this is that everything is performed with the palms (rather than the backs of the hands) toward the audience. It just seemed to be a bit more visual, and the final coin, thankfully, was done without the standard gag of "making it go visibly." During the explanation, he covered a bonus move which he called a Flipper Without a Flipper. He demonstrated (and taught) how to toss two coins from one hand to another to make it look like you're using a flipper coin when you're not. That doesn't sound very practical. It seems more like a gag to fool the magi. In fact, it didn't look anywhere as clean as a flipper coin would have. Further, it's much more angle-sensitive. My vote is to stick with a flipper coin.

Ad Copy Integrity

There's nothing to speak of in the written ad copy. However, the video trailer may appear to be slightly misleading when you watch it. It's not, however. The trailer is for both volume 3 and volume 4, so there are clips of performers and performances in the ad trailer that are not necessarily on this DVD. Other than that, there's nothing noteworthy in the ad copy.

Product Quality

The biggest problem with this DVD was the production. The audio was often terrible. The lighting was poor and the angles/camera work in general was not conducive to seeing a clear shot of the effect, let alone actually learning how to do it. The camera was too far away and very often, the effect was extremely unclear and the teaching was not always easy to follow due to the poor production quality.

Final Thoughts

When you consider that, for the most part, this is just minor tweaks to standard coin work coupled with less-than-stellar production quality yet tempered with a few novel and good ideas here and there, it's hard to give this a great rating. Especially at the asking price.

Final Verdict:
2.5 Stars with a Stone Status of grubble - a few gem ideas surrounded by rubble environments and production (lack of) quality.