Chip board or Oak

Posted: Jun 6, 2011 1:14pm
English food or French

Posted: Jun 6, 2011 1:16pm
Whoopie Golberg or Halle Berry

"The difference between $100 cups and $300 ones?"

...is $200

Oh, I know you know there's much more to it than that. One visit to your site will confirm this.

There is MUCH more to it than that. It's not a matter of "vanity." For example, a set of plain vanilla copper Sherwood cups, which, with balls and postage will cost you a bit more than $300, have a feel to them that can only be explained by letting someone hold them. Make them into a combo set and the cost increases to a bit more than $450. Are they worth it? To a professional, yes. To a duffer, probably not.

Then there are the engraved cups. Some might call the engraved silver Sherwoods "vanity" cups. Maybe they are. But if you consistently perform in venues where money flows freely and people expect "class," they are the right cups to use.

A set of Gazzo cups by Gary Animal or by RnT 2 is going to cost you more than $300. OTOH, they are built like tanks, so if you are one of those guys who has a tendency to do "body work" on his cups with a drumstick, they will last a lot longer than a set of Danny Dew chick cups. Heavy copper costs more money and is far more difficult to spin than light copper.

I would simply say that it's basically like jazz. If someone has to explain what it is, you won't understand it. The same is true of the differences between cheap cups and expensive cups. Cheap cups feel cheap. They are light and easily damaged. They can get caught by a gust of wind and blow away, if you are performing outdoors. The exception would be the Phoenix cups. Even then, when they were first put on the market, the full sets were still in the $250 range. Now you can't get the full sets with the certificates, etc., so it's a moot point.

A set of genuine Paul Fox cups by Danny Dew will cost you something like $500 up. Some would call that a vanity cup. But the best of them won't tarnish. These were the ones spun by Rings and Things for Danny Dew, back during the 1970's. They had the magicpoxy finish.
Do they feel and "work" differently from the Penguin cups? That depends on the set of Penguin cups. There were some severe deficiencies in the consistency of Penguin cups. Some sets were fine. Others were really strange. But the Danny Dew cups were very consistent. So are the modern Paul Fox cups by RnT II. They are very consistent and well made. And they are less than $300 a set.

The Johnson cups, which are basically a "vanilla" set, lists for $350. I wouldn't call those "vanity" cups. They are a good, basic professional set of cups.

It's like rubber walnuts. If the spectator never handles them, a set from Spain, which includes a chopped walnut, is just as good as any other set. In fact, for my purposes, it's better, simply because it's chopped. That means I can do more with it than I can with a set that isn't.

Posted: Jun 6, 2011 1:56pm
Whoopie Cushion or Electric F*rt Machine

Posted: Jun 6, 2011 2:04pm
BTW, Michael Vincent, who is one of the better cups and balls workers, came over to the museum about a year and a half ago. He spent a couple of hours trying out cups. He decided to get a set of Sherwoods. Vanity cups? Nope. He liked the way they felt and the way they looked in his hands. Michael considers EVERY aspect of a set of cups when he decides on what he wants.

As a side note, I am consistently amused by people who make reference to "cups that nobody would ever drink out of" or "cups that it is impossible to drink from." One magipundit has stated something to the effect that you can't drink out of a cup with a rolled mouth bead.

I find that incredibly amusing. Take a look at a Dixie cup sometime. Or a tin cup such as the ones people sit around campfires with and drink coffee from. Sherwood cups look very similar to punch cups. Early Rings and Things chop cups looked a lot like mint julep cups.

BTW, real julep cups normally have a mouth bead or at least a reinforced rim of some sort.

Assuming I'm that "magicpundit" I didn't mean you can't drink from them, it's just that the audience doesn't really care, although I could drink from a set of Cellini cups, it would probably taste bad and chances are I'd spill my drink if I tried to set them down on the tapered saddle.

Now wait just a gol-durn mitute there, Gazzo; what's wrong with Whoopie? I think she's hot, I like her...she makes me laugh. Come to think of it, so do you, but I think of you in a different way.

You aren't! I have someone else in mind. He hasn't posted to this thread yet.

Posted: Jun 6, 2011 3:47pm
Something to bear in mind in all of this is that the best cups to work with are those that have been designed by actual cups and balls workers.

Paul Fox*, Danny Dew, Harry Monti, Al Wheatley, Tim Star, Gazzo, Gary Animal, Ross Bertram, Brett Sherwood, Charlie Miller**, Burtini, Laurie Ireland -- all worked the cups, as well as making significant design specifications.

*Paul Fox was not well-known as a cups and balls performer; however, he knew enough from working with them that he was able to design a cup around a specific load for a specific circumstance.

**Not the so-called "Charlie Miller" cups sold by Magic, Inc., but the ones Stull made for him -- really big traditional cups.

By the time a set of cups goes through a few iterations of being copied, somewhere along the line something happens to cause the quality to diminish. In the case of the Harry Monti cups, it's the Indian copies that are made of metal that is too thin to work with properly. That's just one example.

BTW, this is true of almost any trick or prop. If a designer doesn't understand what happens during a trick, then he/she will add "features" that may actually be bugs.

Gazzo might say, "Ever try to blow your nose with a silk?"

From a personal point of view I'd add Jim Sisti to that list Bill I turn to the original ones more than I do my Sherwoods of late.

Another good example would be "cup wobble"

A precision designer might make them a perfect fit only to find they don't unstack freely or they don't survive one drop without making them unusable on the street.

Kosmo or Pete Biro

Dave V: The purpose of the cups in the cups and balls is to cover the balls. The easiest way to do that is to place a cup on top of the balls. Honestly, the cups that most people (including me) use don't look like any kind of cup that anybody would use for anything that cups are used for. It's very rare but I have had people want to look at my cups although that may be because of the way I performed the C&B, but I'm not really sure. Dai Vernon always wanted to look natural and do his sleights like a lay-men would, but he used modern metal cups. The question is "Would the performance be better if the cups looked more "real" than the standard metal cups. I bought small rice-bowls to test my theory a while back, but I never used them because they made certain sleights more difficult and could'nt hold a very large final load.

Yes I know. I'm on your side in this discussion. We're magicians. We use unusual stuff. It's part of what we do. There are times when your routine requires you to use "borrowed" items such as coffee mugs and the like, but other than that, my cups are props, tools, whatever you want to call them, but nobody would imagine I'd want to drink from them.

There's a bunch of "handling" to try out with a set of cups.
Start with how do they stack. I've seen sets that wobble. Then how do they hold a load and look when you lift the cup off the largest ball you can get in there sensibly with a load? That is quite a moment in the usual routines so you want it to work for you.

From the squash vanish to the elevator move, from finding out how many of the balls you use you can have on a cup and still stack them to how they fit in your hand when you pick them up - much to explore in making a choice.
Then you get to ruggedness. If you're working in a venue where things are likely to get dropped or have a style that has you tapping the cups with your wand - you like want cups that can take some beating and survive getting tapped out when you get home.

If you can get to a place that offers a large selection of cups - spend some time and find what serves your needs.

BTW - John V. Hope made me a nice set of metal cups while I was working on the Ramsay routine - and about ten years before I realized I needed lids on the cups for the way I want to approach the trick. But still - folks there's no excuse for not exploring what others have found workable in the real world of performing over the last fifty years using the 'standard' type set.

Gazzo East and Gazzo West

That is a little closer to plastic cups versus engraved sherwoods really

Most sets of cups have a certain amount of wobble built into them, some more than others. Possibly the least wobbly cups I have ever seen were made by Encore Magic. They had one minor problem. They were such a tight fit that they didn't separate easily. Brema cups don't wobble much, but they don't have much attic space.

Metal Ramsay cups lose sight of the main attraction of the Ramsay routine.

you gotta admit that LV and Gucci, although you are paying mostly for the Brand, the quality is also better than the bags/wallets you get from the night market, right?

I too am just a hobbyiest, and my first set of cups was an aluminum set(which I have since given away to a new magic hobbyiest) and got my set of JES Squatty from the previous RnT2. And YES, there is a difference. The posts above mine have stated the reasons why (thicker metal, hand spun/polished etc).

There is nothing wrong with using an Uday , but once you handled the better sets it's hard to revert back to using an Uday.

That's not entirely accurate.

One purpose of the cups is to cover the balls. Another is to hold the balls. A third is to display the balls. A fourth is to provide certain elements of misdirection.

Dai Vernon also performed on occasion with drinking glasses wrapped in paper. Does that mean that we all should? I don't believe so.

It's more like the difference between a Thomas Pink shirt and a Fruit of the Loom shirt (before Pink moved to China).
The shape, yes - it costs a lot of time and materials (and ultimately dollars) to design and develop a cup that is a specific shape optimized for cups and balls.
The material, yes - it costs a lot to buy raw copper and brass, punch out the rounds that are the appropriate size for the cups. And the thicker the material, or the larger the cup, the more expensive the raw material.
The brand, no - there are no brands in magic that charge a premium just for a name. The magic industry is just too small for a manufacturer to do such a thing.
Of course the single greatest difference in price is created when magic manufacturers (or toy companies) have cups made in India or China in huge volumes by third world labor. I can't compete with that. In the US, shop time and good craftsmen all have costs based upon the cost of living and the current state of the economy. TODAY, you can't even MAKE a set of good copper cups FOR $100 in the US and I'll bet Uday and Magic Mockers cups cost them about $10 ea - made in India.

To me, I prefer to support local craftsmen who are trying to hammer out a living in a tough economy. I don't shop at Walmart and I buy my produce at a local farmer's market. I have a choice. I don't let the price tag be the only determining factor when I'm making a purchase. I want quality stuff that isn't disposable, that isn't just a profit for a corporate share-holder, or a cheap deal with a foreign manufacturing shop. It's already impossible to do this with clothing. You get what you pay for - in more ways than one.

I'll say this. If I packed up all my tooling and shipped it to India and ordered up 1000 sets of Foxy 3 cups, they would cost you considerably less to buy. Instead, I choose to make them 20 sets at a time. And each cup is perfect and made in the USA... and I'm proud to put my name on them.

Sorry if this response seems political, but your question is one of economics and you can't discuss this without considering the plummetting value of the US dollar, the out-sourcing of manufacturing jobs, and the cost of third world labor. 33% of my customers are from UK, Europe, Central and South America, Australia and Asia and they don't really care if my cups and balls are made in the US or not. They choose my cups because they know they are getting a quality hand made product - made for their specific purpose. Not something mass produced. They pay a premium for the shipping costs and sometimes they even have to pay an import tax, but they still go out of their way to buy a set of cups they know are going to last a lifetime, and they know they are dealing with the guy who made the product, picked, polished, packed and shipped their order - not some Indian or Chinese toy company.

And for the "it doesn't matter argument":
Basically, you can pull dirty coffee cups out of a trash bin and do a magic trick with them, the same way you can pull a penny out of your pocket and do a magic trick with it so this question comes up again and again. And there are always those who are minimalists and will tell you that it doesn't matter to your audience and it shouldn't matter to you. Whatever. That's their "theory". I use silver dollars for magic tricks. Today a silver dollar will cost you about $35 each. That's 3500 pennies. But I bought mine 20 years ago and still use them today - so I got my 3500 performances out of them. I figure I broke even with the "penny performer" - but I just looked better all that time, my show looked more valuable and my audience felt more than magic, they felt a touch of class.