Hey if you could have a choice between 2 of the following videos which would you buy? (My selection is limited to the 2 on Penguin magic because I have gift certificates.)
The first one is Mastering the Art of Watch Stealing with James Coats. It's URL is at James Coat Video

The second video is The Watch Stealing Video.
This one is taught by Chappy Brazil. Chappy Brazil Video

I am leaning towards this one, But I am still unsure.

Any help would be appreciated.

I only have the Chappy tape but can say it is very good. I highly recommend it

Ditto: The Chappy Brazil video is very good, and teaches ALL kinds of watch bands. You'll also be given some practice methods which on the surface I thought were pretty corny, but turn out to be very good!

Good Luck,
Pete

I hope it goes without saying that doing any kind of watch steal on the "street" is a very bad idea...

DoctorAmazo,

Chappy Brazil addresses the issue of the watch steal on the street in his video. Very good advice.

The Chappy Brazil video is good, he also shows you how to incorporate it into some existing material in just about every magician's repetoire.

I wholeheartedly disagree!

If you could pull it off in, say, a resturant, the only thing keeping you from preforming it on the street is in good judgement in the person you're "stealing" from and your attitude.

Granted, if you come off as a jerk when on the street (sadly, many performers do), don't do it on the street. Or anywhere else!

I personally don't perform watch steals, but I have a good story. A layman friend of mine was at work (retail) and someone came in trying to sell advertising. My friend was not interested. As the conversation wore down, the salesman tried to do a watch steal. My friend caught him and wanted to throttle him. The salesman of course said he was a magician and it was all in fun. I'd say the lesson to be learned here is make sure you build a rapore with your "mark" first unless you are 110% positive you can get it unnoticed. Do a few quick tricks first or something. To tie this in to the original question: do either of the two videos talk about that aspect of a watch steal? Anwyay, good luck with the watch steals... and I hope you can run fast!

You have to be careful when performing a watch steal. I find they are more of a close up trick, not everyone will see it as a gag, but they will be more careful around their wallets if they see you a "potential theif"

This being said, Buy the Chappy Tape.

Chappy Brazil has the best video.

Jeff Hobson does many watch steals in his show and it works great. I've seen many people do it is street shows and it's wonderful entertainment. There is absolutely no reason not to do it on the street if you are an accomplished performer.

A know of a performer who once accidently forgot to give the watch back. I could see this happening easily if you are not careful and it could lead to a really bad situation.

In my experience it works best to do the watch steal while guiding the volunteers on stage from the audience. Also if it goes wrong a person is less likely to get upset infront of a large group and will often play along to help out

This trick takes tons of practice. I really don't use this much. If you want a copy for cheap, there is an auction called pollar bear magic. Search for it on google.com

The James Coat's video is awesome. My fav

Is there any video "watch steal" that teach us how to get out when we are "caught in the act".

Maybe A TRICK as A WAY OUT that reasonable for the spectator so the spectator does not think that we want to "steal" their watch

Hengky

Both are good, this effect I seldom use, especially on streets with strangers, STEALINGS are too dangerous.

As I remember, afer I gave the watch back, the guy and his friend were checking back the wallets and then they' afraid of STEALING SKILL of magicians. From there on I just do WATCHSTEAL with friends only.

Bone.

I always make a point of saying, "check your wallet" when I give the watch back. When they do you can always follow with, "great, now I know where it is."

To me the point of taking the watch is that you are so slick or magical that you can do stuff like that without them knowing - and wouldn't a real magician not only be able to take someones watch or wallet but want to. It's the same ploy as misers dream.

Well, I don't do a watch steal, but I agree and think that to do a watch steal on the street isn't such a good idea. On the other hand, doing a watch steal at a magic show would be fine I think, because they know it is a professional and not some pickpocket.

I have not seen the Coats DVD. I had previousy said that I saw it on video, but James Coats gently mentioned to me, that it was never on Video. So I went back to my Video library, and I was mistaken about which watch steal video I have. (Maybe that is because I didn't like it at all..but I even forgot who did it.) It was not James Coats.

I have not seen the Coats watch steal.

I thought about deleting this message, but I decided to leave it here so that if someone saw my previous post about the coats video, they can also now read my retraction.

My apology to James Coats for my mistake.

The video that I do have is the Kevin King Watch Bandit video, and as I said previously, it is probably the only video in my magic collection that I would consider getting rid of.

BroDavid

The Chappy Brazil video is the best one.

I have James coats' and it is just so-so. I have been told that the other one is much better.

On the spot by Greg Wilson showed how to do it by incorporating it in his act so that even if caught, there is a way out... although it's not a purely watch stealing video, it's pretty good...