My Freddi Up Silicone thumbtip arived today, and I must say that this is the most absolutely realistic, detailed, close to life thumbtip I have ever owned, and I have owned a multiplicity of them over the years.

This thing is beautiful.

Daffydoug, is there a link to the web site?
edit - I just saw the ad on the Café for this thumbtip.. Very interesting.

Daff, thanks for sharing that with us!

Can you do a bill switch properly with it?

Here's the link:
http://www.magic-frediup.com/index.php?langue=en

Go to Hank Lee"s web site and click his hot list. (It's a few pages in on the list now.) He just got a brand new shipment in. That way you won't have to be botherd with trying to mess around wth sending money to France.

If you go to Hank's , do not trust the sizing chart. It is not accurate. Freddies Large size is about the size of a standard Vernet.

Honestly, these are so good, the details and the craftmanship on it are so perfect, that when you do a bill switch, you might be tempted to let your thumb tip go over the edge of the bill just to watch them be fooled. You might smoke other magicians with this, because they know when you do the switch, that that thumb should remain hidden behind the bill. When they see it peeking over the edge, and it looks like real flesh, instead of a cheap plastic thimble, you just may give them pause to think.

Closest thing to a prosthetic piece you can find.

I have not had a lot of time to work with it yet, so I can't answer the bill switch question yet.

Each one is hand crafted, BTW.

These are too soft and sticky to do a bill switch...

Tony,

As ridiculous as this may sound, could you jam a smaller, more bill-friendly TT into this one and use it that way? The outside wouldn't look any different and the inside would facilitate the switch. At the end of the day, I don't think that a perfect-looking TT is necessary for the bill switch effect, but just thought I'd pose the question since it appears that others disagree.

Larry

That's incredibly clever.
Great thinking Larry...I may have to go pick up your videos

Larry, great idea!

I sem to always stay with my standard tip. I can't get over being fooled by someone wearing a bright orange one.

Might be very feasable, because it is available in jumbo diamater if you want it.

There was a thread on these tips a few months back.
They rock. They are absolutely the most realistic looking tips short of a custom made piece costing 5 times the amount.

For those who feel such tips are unnecessary, don't buy one !
For the (minority) rest of us who appreciate that TTs can be used for things other than a hanky vanish or bill switch, these are the ones to get.

I can only say a big amen to that. These are a work of art.

Amen mystician aaaaaameeeen!!!

it's enough to just read pentalogy's "Teaser/first 50 pages" to make you wanna get the book AAAAAND a realistic looking TT

I don't get it myself.

The edge is so thick its 10x more noticable than any other tip I currently have.

If it were a hard tip without that huge thick edge I would agree with you.

Mystician, I should have given you mine after I showed it to you that night, because now I can't even find it... 40$ thumbtip ARGH why couldn't I lose the 2$ vernet!!!

:)

Steven

I just ordered mine...Just thought that you should know that...Um...Anyway -

Did you guys order from Fredi-up in France or from HP?

How was the shipping time from France?

I bought it from Fredi in France and it took only a few days for the parcel to drop into my mailbox.
This is my best buy this year: lot of value for the cash.
I have invented a very cool effect thanks to this prop.

Can you share it? If not, we understand.

I live in Toronto, Ontario Canada. I also bought one from Fredi in France and it too less than a week to reach me. And to top it all off, I did not get dinged by broker fees as one might expect from goods arriving from the US!!! That's right, I dread buying from the US because of the fact that a $16 item cost me $29 in broker fees. Shees!

I agree that it seems that it is a little too hard to get things out of the Fredi tip. It is made of sticky silicone or something and since it is soft, trying to grab something from within, the edges fall in preventing a good grab from happening. I was thinking of using some talcum powder or something similar to prevent the stickyness. But that would damage the goods placed inside.... so another method would be to coat the inside with something a little more magician friendly. Plastic comes to mind! Perhaps glueing some to the inside wall to help preventing the walls from caving in when retrieving stuff.

I also do agree that the end of the TT, is too large and does kinda give away something. I wonder if a heat gun would help shrink it?

I bought a Fredi about two months ago. I really liked it at first.
I started noticing white spots appearing near the nail. Then, the whole nail gloss and paint peeled off in one big piece.

The nail is now white silicone color, totally unusable.

I emailed the company and recieved no reply.
$30 flushed.
Sadly,
James

I recently bought a Fredi Up TT.
I must admit that I'm impressed. They are far most realistic than any TT I've seen before.

The realism is not only linked to the nail but mostly to the texture of the Thumb, fingerprints, and the color of a very realistic carnation (I hope it is the good word).

I will be a bit dissappointed if the nail ends like yours, Xiqual. But I hope there is a solution to put a false nail on it to fix it if it the same problem happens for me to.

Because, if we deal with this potential problem of nail, this TT opens new ways to use TT "right in front of spectators' nose". I don't want to debate on the fact that a realistic TT doesn't offer much more than a standard vernet because I have my own response to this problem :
For me, when you can do something like a PK effect whith your bared hand, a lot of spectators want to find a solution.
They look at your hand during all the effect, your hand is often opened, nothing inside and... they doesn't put their eyes on a thumb that looks a little suspicious because of it's "plastic aspect". They only see : Nothing. The only suspicious part of this TT is the drawback of every TT : the edge, but their is many unsuspicious moves or positions that cover this edge.

Conclusion :
I really hope that I won't have the same problem you had Xiqual.
But even in this case, I hope that there is a good way to fix it because IMHO if we put this problem appart these kinds of TT open new kind of close up effects.

PS : To solve the sticky inside (due to the silicone texture) : Cut a bicycle card, roll it, put it inside. It covers the inside part of the TT. The sticky aspect of the TT keeps the rolled piece of card inside, and you have a perfect TT to do a bill switch if it is the way you want use this TT.

Merci pour l'idee de la carte à jouer!