hey, there are always cotton balls

Do they even have to be balls? I think you could do a nice routine with say, tea bags and tea cups! It certainly would make a nice change! Just something to get you thinking...
Jester

Telemus is right, Penn and Teller have an amazing routine involving CLEAR plastic cups and aluminum balls, the final load being a lime. If your able to view this sometime, be sure to set your VCR this is really cool looking. I'm surprised nobody mentioned Paul Gertner's steel cups and balls routine. He uses metal cups and steel ball bearings. This was on the Worlds Greatest Magic 2 special.

Look around your home and see what you can find to use, I've seen a lot of good ideas to start already in this thread. Be creative!

Jester,

Magicman mentions Paul Gertner's metal ball routine, but ironically, in the same book, he has a chop cup routine called "Tea party" in which he uses a tea bag, tea cup, and a huge pile of loose tea leaves for the finale.

How? well it's in the book "Steel and Silver", and all can be constructed at home.

--Ron

Hey cool, sounds like it might be worth buying the book, I've been thinking about getting a book for a little while now, and I think I know which one I'm gonna try to track down.
Then maybe I can adapt it and do a coffee routine...final production a biscuit I think...no wait, a donut!
Thanks, I feel I'm gonna have a lot of fun!
Jester
:clownjuggling:

aluminum foil or cotton balls work for makeshift balls.
I would recommend buying a set of plastic adams cups and balls- I saw them for a few dollars.
Then buy the metal or chop cup set later.

There's several moves that can't be done with the plastic cups.

So I recommend that a serious beginner go ahead and start with a simple metal set (which run about $35-40).

Of course, there's no need to start with a "Professional" $300 set (which I would be hesitant to use for normal working conditions, anyway).

:evilgrin:

I'm probably re-iterating what others have already said, but in my introduction in the newbie area I mentioned that it was an impromptu cup and ball demo that I did in KFC that got me back into magic.

I performed it with 3 Coca Cola cups (pretty large) and some rolled up napkins. It was a pretty simple routine but very successful. The last time I had performed it (to family and friends) was about 15 years earlier.

Basically, if it does the job - use it! I think the thing that impressed my audience (loud nephews and some nearby customers) was the fact that I'd obviously just grabbed what was available and used it. Must have seemed like real magic...

Desmanthus,

Philemon is giving you very wise advice. You can get some aluminum cups for about $20 on the web. $25 will get you a chopped set where one is a chop cup. If you are really interested E-mail the magic warehouse and explain your problem. I think he can order a cheaper set of copper than what he has on the web. Daytona magic has good prices on copper or brass as well.

You can get a set of four stainless steel shot glasses for $15 if you want a smaller set. Small craft store pom poms make great balls and compress well if you dont have much between space. 35mm superballs are good final loads. Get a black cloth bag and a very small closeup wand and it all fits in your pocket and goes anywhere.

I personally like to use plastic ordinary cups-the ones for using at picnics. And as for the balls I recommend small sponge pieces or cotton balls. I think the cost will be around 2 dollars.

Hey Beetroot,
That's good. When I first started reading your post I thought that you were going to say you did the cups & balls with 3 buckets and a hush puppie!

LOL. That was funny, zeroG. Here in Idaho, they grow sugar beets to make processed sugar. I think my use of the term
"Beetroot," as in "the beetroot factory" is a little different than the way our friends in the Southern US use it. I just like saying, "beet-root."

Just a thought on the cups, by another fan of cups and balls: I don't care for plastic drinking cups, because they are light weight. I want my cup to stay where I put it, and not inadvertantly tip it over. It doesn't have to be a magician's cup, but any opaque cups with some "heft" to them are preferred. Someone mentioned that you don't have to use round balls. Malini used to cut up a wine cork into the requisite number of
"balls," but because they weren't round they did not travel far.

I hope these two thoughts added slightly to this discussion. Best wishes with your routine!

If you're looking for an extremley baffling and funny script for the cups and balls, check out "Dixie", number 7 in the Ron Bauer Private Studies Series. Started performing it behind the bar and it never fails to get a tremendous reaction.

M. Ammar published the definitive video's and book on C&B. You can begin and end your education with this set.

The person that single handedly regenerated interest in the Cups and Balls, could be Gazzo. His final load is a melon.

I agree with the person that suggested buying the 25$ cups. There is a lot of moves that cannot be done with plastic cups.

The first cups & balls routine I learned was the simple one from Mark Wilsons Magic Course. I use the routine often because it is easy, it works out of your pockets, I get alot of audience interaction, and people love it. I do it with 3 plastic cups ($.59 each) that I bought at the local grocery store, 3 tiny pom-pom balls with 3 sponge balls for a final load. The entire setup cost less than $5.00.

I picked up a combination Chop Cups & balls set last year and have been working the "Mendoza cups & balls." it is much more impressive, however, I don't use it as often, because it requires that I sit down to do the routine. I will have to adapt it to good standing (Work out of pockets) conditions.

Mike

Michael Ammar teaches an impromptu cups and balls routine on his DVD using coffee cups and grapes ending with fruit as a final load. No stacking though

Ciao for now

Erik

WOW, this thread is really old. I wonder how far the original poster is today in his quest to master the cups . . .

looks like he bailed on the Café a long time ago...

I guess we'll never know