Has anyone heard of the Hamman eggs trick? If so, can you please tell me what the trick is about? Step by step, what happens? How many cards are used? Also, do you think it is powerful, or EH?
Thanks!!

It's an old Emerson & West trick about two guys that go to a diner in the morning after a long nite at the poker table. They order breakfast and their orders get mixed up several times. (Ham and eggs and pancakes and corned beef hash) They finally give up and order whaterver is available but the waitress says now is too late for breakfast and they're only serving lunch. At this time the punch line is that the same cards that have been shown previously with breakfast items now show lunch items like hamburgers and french fries.

Its a cute effect that requires the right cards to be able to pull the counts convincingly. I made my own in bicycle stock and laser printed stickers which looked great. I have one reservation; there is a bank or packets of cards that is left aside in the wallet that arouses suspicion from the audience and they always want to see it. Another drawback is that the patter gets too repetitive in order to achieve the final effect. I cleaned it up a bit and made it more direct but still I think that there are other effects in the packet trick category that are more powerful and direct and leave the spectators astounded without a way to reconstruct or back track the effect.

The cards used are 9 if I am not wrong. I hope this info is useful.

Cheers!

Hbenod pretty much sums it up. I would not consider it a 'powerful' trick either, nor one of the best from Emerson and West. Amusing eye candy, but occasionally that's all one needs. There are plenty of better, stronger packet effects out there.

Paul.

Thank you. Do you know of any other packet trickes similar to this that would be "cute" for a young audience?

Joey,

Do yourself a favour and get hold of Paul's excellent book
"Small but Deadly". Will give you hours of fun reading about
most of the packet tricks around and will probably answer
most of the questions you have!

All the Best

Magnus

Does that show where I can buy them, because I know that some are pretty rare?

I have a couple of new ones suitable that will be released next year sometime.

AS for the Emerson and West tricks, they are not easy to get hold of now. I believe Fun Inc. released SOME of the range a couple at a time with instructional videotape a few years ago, whether they were transfered to DVD or not I don't know.

A fun update of Sympathetic Cards that is suitable for kids is Aldo Colombini's Shenanigan (try his web site, last time I looked the price had been reduced).

Small But Deadly does not tell you where to buy them as generally successful packet tricks are available from many dealers, but for the most part it tells you who produced them when they were first released. From there you can try and track them down on the web. Some effects in the book are fully detailed.

You might try Hank Lee's for suitable early Phil Goldstein releases like "Numero Uno" "The Great Jumpini" or later Max Maven releases like "Procket" or "Lemonstration."

"Small But Deadly" is available from most of the larger magic dealers and a great buy to anyone interested in packet tricks.

Paul.

Salesmans night out is a similar trick and is available from penguin.

At first glance this looks like a possible variant on Oliver McKenzie's Drink Trick.
You consider it a similar trick to which?

With a theme like "A salesman visits Chicago, goes to a street where he can have lots of fun" it doesn't seem like a packet trick suitable for kids or restaurant work (like several mentioned previously) though might play well in a bar.

Paul.

Good Point Paul, I now realise that Joey wanted this for a young Audiance so no it's not suitable.