Last week in Colon during Abbott's 77th Get-Together, I (very fortunately) was able to buy a set of the Auke VanDokkum Jumbo Street Cups in Stainless steel along with four 1 1/2 inch Dayglo Yellow Monkey fist balls for an amazingly low price of $275 from one of the street vendors on "Vendors Row".

Until then, I've never even seen a set of these cups other than on Websites. They are MAGNIFICENT cups, CNC'd out of a solid block of stainless steel and polished to a mirror-like finish. Each cup weighs in at 14 ounces, they're rock solid stacked, they ring when tapped together just like the "Bells of St. Mary's" cups, and all 3 balls will sit on one of the cups.

Sitting next to my Mendoza Combo Cups, the Mendoza's look like "Copper Dumpies" compared to these brilliant, over-sized, jumbo cups....yes...they are that much bigger.

I'm a happy camper.........this was one of those "Once-in-a lifetime" deals that was too good to pass up.

Wow for that price it was a steal to get some CNC SS VanDokkums'... Especially a larger set!

Compare at $595 for the normal sized cups... Good call - Enjoy!

TKF:

You're right.....these are currently selling on Auke's Website for $800.....and that's without the balls....and the balls that came with the cups are NICE!

You STOLE those cups!!!!

Congratulations. Auke makes fine cups.

Bill Palmer:

I see from your earlier posts that you're a big believer in these particular cups......and I can see why!

Auke told me several years ago that when things would get dull at a convention, he would kick one of his cups around the dealers' room. It woke everyone up and it didn't hurt the cups at all.

I have more than 30 different sets of cups by Auke. Some of them are novelty sizes, such as the Picocups and the Femtocups.

I've even been to his workshop in Urk, a small town in the Netherlands.

I saw that set of cups, before they were bought, and I recognized them right away. That is one sweet set!

I had Joe Porper make a folding wand with (faux) Ivory inlaid in Ebony Tips for me a couple of years ago that looks exactly like the picture of the Folding Wand on his Website, and it's perfect for the "upstroke" and the "downstroke" on these cups as the Ebony Tips won't mar the finish as a metal-tipped wand would.

Joe makes BEAUTIFUL wands, by the way......

Handling-wise, the cups are so substantantial and the balls are so large, that I've found that I have had to compensate for many (if not all) of the moves I do, and let gravity "do it's thing" when using these particular cups and balls. My Mendoza Combo Set with 1 1/8 inch Emerald Green Monkey Fist Balls had been the largest set I've used to this point, and it may not seem like it, but there is a BIG difference (to me at least) in the feel and handling of the 1 1/2 inch yellow dayglow Monkey Fist Balls VS the others. The VanDokkum cups are MUCH heavier, too, and when they are loaded and placed on a mat, you CANNOT hear loads drop at all...the sound of the cup itself pretty much covers it. I'm using Fab Fruit for practice, but they're not big enough for these cups since they look smallish when revealed.

The good news is, I'm not one of those magicians who feel threatened by Supermarket Voyeurs when I take a cup with me to the store just to make sure that the oranges I'm looking at are just the right size for the cups!