Hi all,
I've just purchased a lovely n o boxes ( mikame) but the translation of the instructions is a little 'broken'. I've tried out an effect vanishing a specs ring ( part of a routine I'm trying with deadlock) on 'er indoors, and it worked ok, it's just that the sort of wrist- kill turnover method that I think the instructions are portraying seem a bit obvious as your handing the last box over opened. Is this just magi guilt on my part?
Hope I haven't said to much for an open forum, perhaps if anyone has any ideas or alternate handlings they'd be good enough to pm me?
Thanks for listening,
Rob

I'm about to publish my own Dollar Store Nest of Boxes routine in The Wizards' Journal #11 (coming soon to my site). It does not use trick boxes at all. I'll give you a hint, though. Inside the smallest box, the spectator (who opens all the boxes) finds a ball of yarn. She removes the ball of yarn and comments that it feels a little heavier than a ball of yard should feel. She drops the ball of yarn into a clear glass goblet that you hold, and begins unraveling the ball of yarn. The ring drops out of the ball of yarn with a clunk when the yarn ball has been sufficiently unraveled. She removes the ring from the glass and verifies it as the missing ring. By using this new method of discovery of the ring, you eliminate all the "fishy" moves.

If this interests you, check your dollar stores right now for some nesting cardboard boxes. You should probably get two sets, one with the Christmas decorations for this season of the year, and one that you can redecorate to make plain (but colorful) boxes for the rest of the year. Then go to my site and wait there with your tongue hanging out and three bucks in your hot little hand until I post the routine... unless, of course, you have already figured out the method behind my madness and are ready to do it all on your own!

The set of Mikame boxes "roblane" is using are NOT trick boxes. They are clean as a whistle. He is seeking help with a critical bit of handling in the presentation.

I have a set of these boxes, the handling is involved, I will try to explain it with a PM.

Bill

I'm glad to hear the Mikame boxes are ungimmicked. Can you have each box individually sealed with rubber bands or ribbons and all the opening of the boxes done by the spectator? If so, that would make it even closer to the version I have been performing all these years.

Dear Professor Spellbinder:

It's funny how sometimes several people can be thinking along the track at same time.

A few weeks back, I was working with a pupil of mine who was enamored by the idea of vanishing a spectators ring and making it appear within a very expensive set of nest of boxes. I was very much against the boxes because they seemed in my mind to be inorganic and to be quite frank they were really out of his budget.

So, I designed a nesting apparatus in which the ring went into a large gift box (with a bow) inside which was a sealed velvet drawstring bag, inside which was a ball of yarn.

Here's where our ideas differ, inside the ball of yard was a small ring box with a few rubber bands wrapped around it. Inside the ring box was or course the borrowed ring.

The reason I suggested the ring box was because I felt that the spectator might be a bit upset by their precious ring banging around in the clear plastic container as the ball of wool was unwound.

Also, I told my student to give the clear box to the spectator on stage to hold and to give the end of the yarn to the other spectators in the audience. This helps keep the magician separated from the yarn at the final moments of the trick and it also allowed for some comedic byplay by egging the spectators to pull the yarn faster and faster.

Finally, I suggested that he NEVER borrow a ring that has a stone on it. Such rings can be fragile and if a stone is noticed missing at a later time, the magician will be the first to be blamed.

Best regards,
Levent

P.S. As far as my idea of a box within a ball of yarn is concerned, the concept is very old. In "Cyclopedia of Magic" (Published in 1949), the author Henry Hay talks about magicians in his day commonly making a borrowed coin appear within a ball of yarn inside which was a "nest of boxes" set!

The extra box to protect the ring is a good idea and could be used with my method, although in all the years I performed my version, I never had a complaint about ring damage, but those were not law-suit crazy years either. However, the tiny box should be made of metal (in my opinion) because the thing I like most about the ending is hearing the ring (or box) break free of the yarn ball as it is unraveled far away from you, and having the spectator reach into the glass to retrieve it (and open it- if the box were used).

You're correct about the "Cyclopedia of Magic" reference, and I don't claim any originality for the discovery of the ring in the ball of yarn inside a nest of boxes; just the method by which it gets there, and the special method by which the ring vanishes while in the spectator's hands. Also, my method does not use the gimmick mentioned by Henry Hay and sold with all those old-time coin in the nested boxes pocket tricks which works fine for coins, but not at all well for rings, not to mention the fumbling that would be involved before finally producing the ball of yarn. Fumble-free handling was the reason I came up with this interesting method in the first place.

Use your hand and the lid for cover.