This is my version of the Elmsley Cups and Balls routine. For those of you who do not know the routine, it starts with the normal cups and balls, at the end, one of the cups is turned upside down and a stream of sugar, salt, etc... is produced. It is collected together and poured back into the cup but there is now enough to fill all three!

My version uses the cardboard cups that you find at Cafés (I don't know if they are the same in America) and sugar packets, with a final load of ground coffee! I will probably use it in my competition routine.

:banana:

I do not currently have a set of cups and balls or a routine, so this would be the first. Some adverts often say that "these cups have a perfect weight" so will I need to make the cups heavier to perform with the disposable ones? Will it be possible to do the moves with the sugar packets instead of balls?

Thanks for the help.
Owen

:banana:

Hi Owen. I am not familiar with the routine you mention, but you can use any cups you want (as long as they are not transparent.)

The cups that are sold are just professional cups that have nothing so special that you can't do the cups and balls without. It is just cool to have a set. Paul Harris has two cups and balls routines, one with a can and the other with a paper bag. So you can use just anything.

Hope this helps.

Ivan

P.S. I think it would fit better to your routine if you use tea cups. Michael Ammar uses them with grapes and finally fruit as loads.

:cowboy: (Oh boy. I like this little cowboy.)

Thanks for the tips,
Do you think it is possible to use the sugar packets instead of balls.
I personally think that the disposable cups are better for the effect, as I think they look more modern and are every day objects. Also I think that the size is good as it will allow for twice as much coffee to be removed at the end.
Then again it is just a matter of opinion.
:stircoffee:

Yes, I think you can use sugar packets with a little more practice. Perhaps you would have to fold the packet a little bit. Or else why not use sugar cubes or something that looks a lot like them, anyway.

Just a thought.

Owen,
I see no reason you couldn't use the paper cups. The weight of the metal cups, especially some like the Johnson cups, allow you to do some flourishes that are difficult with lighter ones.

I really like Ivan's idea of using the sugar cubes; that should give you a lot more flexibility with then sleights. If you are intending this more for an impromptu type of thing then you may need the sugar packets as you don't see the cubes as often in the restaurants anymore. If you work the packets in your hand before performing to make them more flexible, it may help.

Dwight

Paper cups are 'cute' and appropriate for very casual venues.

Coffee cups are cool for better venues

The heavy cups are good for magicians.

Yes, I learned the Ramsay routine.
I would like to know more about this Elmsley routine. Is it in print or video? The productions of table stuff seem very good.
I do like the Vernon routine up to just after the three spin vanishes and the revelation of the balls under the cups.

Might I suggest using 'sugar cubes' instead of paper wrapped packets? You can make nice cubes from foam rubber or styrofoam that will look like sugar cubes and be less noisy in the cups.

Cheers! Jonathan

Jonathan,

The Elmsley salt cups routine appears in the "Collected Works of Alex Elmsley" vol. 1, I believe. (there are two) They are terrific books. I do not know if the routine appears on the videotapes Elmsley did with L&L.

Jon,
I really advise you get these books, until recently they have been my most favorite reference (now this position is being held by AoA 1-3)

They contain really great magic, and very few pick a card tricks.

The idea of using solid coffee cups can't be used for this routine (well they probably could, if you were to modify the routine slightly). The cups can't have a handle as you need to do the drop through illusion (usually used as a gag to make it seem like 1 cup falls through another) as it is used as a sleight during the trick.

:kermit:

I really, really like the idea of using sugar cubes, it almost seems like the more obvious method,
Thanks,
Owen
:dance:

Hey owen, instead of coffee beans, could you produce a full cup of proper hot steaming coffee??

I know the workings of the Elmsley routine, but I can't remember enough about the handling to know if it would work...

Then you could use coffee beans or milk containers as the balls, plastic cups, a spoon as a wand and then produce a cup of coffee?



Well, I hope you think it's a good idea.

Liam

While I can't speak for the practice outside of the U.S., Starbucks here in the States often has samples of their pastries cut into 1" (or so) cubes for coffee buyers to taste. These would be larger than sugar cubes and possibly easier to fabricate/manipulate.

For those who have never been in a Starbucks, just be patient. At their current rate of expansion, there will be two on every street corner throughout the world by the year 2013.

I hope this helps a latte.

:

I like the idea of using tasters.
But will the audience know what they are?
I think it would be a safer bet to use sugar cubes. Interesting fact about Starbucks!!!

Owen

:sun:

How about using the chocolate covered coffee bean candies as the balls? Or any of the other gourmet candies that always seem to be at the register?

You could spray or paint or dip them in some kind of clear sealer so they wouldn't stain your hands.

Or, if you got the bon-bon deals or the ferre-roche (sp?) nut candies, just carefully unwrap them and replace the candy with a small ball.

The sample pastries are a great idea! I'd want to let them dry out in the fridge for a few days first and then seal them to minimize any crumbling or filling leakage. Also, you'd be sure to have the 'balls' that you need in case the place where you are at runs out of sample or doesn't have any that look close enough alike.

I have recently been experimenting with using real Sugar Cubes. I have found though that when loaded into the polystyrene cups they cause quite a loud noise, but as a friend said it would be better for me to use something real than a fake look-alike, but it seems the only way around this problem would be to make foam sugar cubes. I suppose I could use the idea of Ferero-Roches with a foam ball, but will the foil wrapper make a noise and give away any secret loading?

I have been trying to come up with this as part of a 'Coffee' or 'Food' based routine. I had thought of continuing on with:

Steve Bedwell's handling of an invisible deck, in which two cups (in this case two of the ones already being used) are created into a coctail shaker.

John Carney's 'Fruit Cup' in which a borrowed note has a corner torn off as a receipt and then the remainder of the note is crumpled into a ball and placed under a cup. A Chop Cup (un-gaffed, in this case one of the cups used earlier) routine follows with the ending that instead of the note under the cup, a lemon is in it's place. The lemon is cut open and the borrowed bill is inside.

or moving away from the cups:

Marco Duca's coin in bottle routine, in which a coin is shown to not fit inside a bottle, it is squeezed and is now half the size and is simply slipped into the bottle, it is removed and the spectator tries to put it in but it is seen to be too big (but is still a lot smaller than the original coin). It is restored to it's normal size and is tapped against the bottom of the bottle where it penetrates (like the normal coin in bottle) but then the bottle is shown to have it's cap attached as though it is a new bottle!

Marco Duca's Salt and Pepper routine, in which a salt and a pepper seller are removed and a gambling game follows when both are wrapped in separate napkins and a spectator has to guess which one has the salt under it. At the end the two sellers are squished into one half full of salt and half full of pepper.

What do you think of these ideas?
Which do you favour the most?
Have you got any ideas to add to the list?

Thanks for the help,
Owen