My vote would be:
Bill Malone On The Loose DVD's
Dai Vernon's Revelations DVD's

I have most of these but from what I've read...I really need to get "Bill Malone On the Loose"!!!

I put out a video about a year or so ago just for "Cafe members" (it got GOOD reviews!!!)...still thinking I should re-make it with a PRO set-up (camera and studio) along with some new stuff I'm working on....wonder if L&L or any of those would be interested????? I could send 'em a "home video" of my stuff 'n see waht they think....anybody think this would be a good idea???? (just checking!!;)

Can you give us a link?

thanks,

Jay

Vinny, that would be in reference to Steve Youell

Okay and my votes are not in any order

Alex Elmsey-Tahoe Sessions
Michael Ammar(all)
Max Maven-Video Mind
Richard Osterlind-Mysteries of the Mind

Jay

I too am glad I bought the Bill Malone series.

About 90% of my working material came from those four DVDs!

I decided to make life easier for people. A a quick reference guide of what currently appears to be the most popular DVDs/videos as mentioned by you.

Any that have less than five mentions have been left out, and the more popular ones highlighted.

Bill Malone: On The Loose Series 45
Michael Ammar: ETMCM 34
The Very Best of Jay Sankey 31
Daryl's Series 22
Gregory Wilson's On The Spot 20
The Magic of David Regal 16
Visions of Wonder - Tommy Wonder 16
Doc Eason: Bar Magic Series 14
Max Maven: Videomind Series 13
Flicking Fingers the Movie 13
Osterlind's Series 10
Guy Hollingworth 9
Gregory Wilson's - Card stunts 8
Jeff McBride's Collections 8
Ellusionist material 7
Derren Brown's Material 7
De'vo's "Cradle to Grave 7
Michael Close: Workers 5
David Roth Ultimate Coin Magic 5

There really are some very interesting mechanisms in this forum when the questions about best, worst, most popular, etc., from time to time pops up.

I have noticed a short while that this thread had rather many responses (seven pages is good), but I have not been reading through it before this afternoon.

Having nothing better to do, I just skimmed through the pages just to see how many votes my fave DVDs got.

My surprise started to grow at the point when I finished skimming the six pages without finding more than two (maybe there were three) votes for my candidate.
Another seven or eight occurred on the last page, so all together it got 10.

Looking through the other "winners" and "losers" makes me even more surprised.
Among the videos with the highest score, there absolutely are some good ones. There also are some, which IMHO never should have been there---on the top of the list.

Just the same with the gang with just a few, or even below five scores and not even being "worthy" to be mentioned.

For sure, some of that stuff should never have been made. However, I know that there are quite a few that doesn't deserve that ranking at all.

What do this kind of questions tell us? (-or at least me!)

Don't listen to and follow the advice the ranking gives. You could get incredibly disappointed---or even miss out something of real value.

"Best" isn't best, and "worst" isn't worst in these threads. If you need advice before you invest in something, ask around! Ask people you trust. Ask people you know. Ask people you like or dislike for that matter. Ask people who own (or owned) and perform (or performed/didn't perform) the material you are interested in.

These questions will give you useful, honest and valuable advice.

Richard, I thought you would get a zillion votes in "competitions" like this.
Well, mine included, you at least got 11!

"Richard who?" you might ask.

Well, the readers of some of my previous post in this forum will know. And they all agree in my opinion. I'm dead sure!

You other guys: WATCH OUT!
There are an awful lot of us Good Guys!

Sven

While I agree with many of the other selections, I am a bit surprised that two videos by Carl Andrews have not been mentioned so far: Making A Living Performing Close-up Magic, and No Jacket Required.

These two videos have served me quite well, and I constantly use material from both of them.

Bruce Hetzler

I just got Michael Finney's DVDs for the comedy. I loved these DVDs. I found out that Michael is a great magician, super person, and a hard worker. If you get these DVDs, you WILL add Card on the Forehead to your act.

Many thanks, IceKnight, for all that work!

I realized something about myself awhile back. Right now, for me, the best videos are those that teach me technique and motivate me to practice. Therefore my favourites are Kaufman's Basic Card Technique and Greg Wilson's Double Take.

While I find it inspiring to watch performance-based tapes such as Ammar's Easy to Master... tapes, and certainly agree that they're great, I find Kaufman's and Wilson's tape to be my faves. (Seriously thinking about getting Basic Card Technique on DVD.)

But that's just the place I am right now. I expect that when I'm experienced enough, I'll be looking for help with things like routining, and I may well look to videos or DVDs for help with that.

Bill Malone's On the Loose and Mike Ammar's ETMCM. They're the most bang for the buck. So so many card tricks from the 10 DVDs.

I agree. Both On the Loose and ETMCM are great DVD sets.

Ammar - ETMCM & ETMMM.

At the moment my favourites are:

Daryl's Encyclopedia of Cards Sleights.
Ammar: Easy to Master Thread/Cards Miracles

I don't have a lot of things yet, but these have been very very pleasing!(I am not sure if that is correct English, if not sorry..)

ETMCM by Michael Ammar
Art of Card Manipulation by Jeff McBride

Richard Osterlind's Mind Mysteries!

Rannie

Richard Osterlind's Mind Mysteries
Dave Womach Bird Magic Vol1-2
Roberto Giobbi's 7th British Close-Up Magic Symposium

Mind Mysteries Vol. 1 - hands down

I have just started bulding my video collection and I have found this thread very helpful. Right now I have to say that the "Very best of Jay Sankey" series is my fav. I also love Masters of Excellence vol 1 starring Jay Sankey(1987) for introducing me to the crazy world of Sankey (where anything is possible).

Don't forget Luke Dancy's new DVD.

David Regal is running a great special on this. Here is a Café link to what Daid is offfering:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......77&7

Osterlind.