Many many years ago, I purchased Time Capsule. I had no idea how it worked but had seen a demo of it before and proceeded to try it out without reading the instructions. So I sat at my table and stuffed a small hanky into the clear tube and rolled it up in a sheet of paper. From memory of the demo, I turned the paper tube towards me and twisted the opposite end closed. I turned it 180 degrees and twisted the other end closed and then laid it on the table. When I opened the paper package I was utterly shocked to find that the silk hanky had REALLY vanished from the plastic tube. Remember I had no idea how it worked. I thought to myself this was real magic. I stood up in shock and heard something hit the floor. I looked down and it was the inner tube with the hanky inside. Ohhhhh I thought! See, I did not realise that when I twisted the first end of the paper tube closed, the inner tube slid out over the table edge, onto my lap - all without me knowing. I had completely fooled myself. Was so funny!

I remember seing performed Sutekina many years ago - and I had no clue at all!
Pure magic!

Nice idea for a thread, btw...

Crystal Clever

I had ideas of how it worked but when I saw the gimmick, I was pretty blown away.

The same would go for your Prison Box! That's a mind blower too.

4D Surprise. I watched the video over and over with my wife and we could not figure it out.

Yes Angelo: Yours.

To be honest I could work out many of the Tenyo tricks, but I just couldn't get Prison box. I bought it and took it straight to the coffee shop next to the shop where I bought it, found a quiet corner and opened it up. The locking mechanism especially is very clever.

If I may be so bold, the only drawback is that the plastic at the top lifts up easily, but I totally understand that it is impossible to fix without making the device in metal or something.........hmm stainless steel prison box!!!

Double block Mystery (English name possibly Confounding Cubes??) also was a mystery until I bought it.

Even after watching performances (often by Magic Patagonia) again and again I never knew 100 % how these worked:
- Ultra Tube
- Mystery China Box
- Crystal Cleaver
- Prison Box
- Ninja Experiment (because of Magic Patagonia's 'misleading' video )
- Billscape
- Mirage (I still don't know how the mechanics work to be honest)

For me and for sure Mirage is one of the best micro-mechanism of all the line. It look impossible in a small space like this case. what is impressive is that it is perfectly smooth.
Mystery China box NEVER fool me it's crazy. The solution seemed so logical.

Dragon Altar fooled be when I first saw it. The sublety of having the ball penetrate through the coin into the box threw me. It is still one of my favorites and one of the few Tenyo tricks where the "noise" adds to the illusion.

John

I still have trouble with the handling and mechanics of getting Dragon Altar to work every time.
I know it's just a matter of finding the right angle. Maybe I'll go watch one of the videos.
Kind of frustrating.
Do love the effect though (when it works)

It is a bit of a knack thing, but works pretty consistently for me. It is one of those things that is fun to play with. Inert has some nice thoughts on how to present this in his review of it on Stereo's site.

John

Crystal Cleaver and Prison Box both made my brain hurt...literally. I remember seeing those and lying awake in bed trying to figure them out.
Somehow, my wife couldn't sympathize with my lack of sleep.

Nice to see my trick is in the list

Many Tenyo tricks has fooled me first time and that's fun.
I love Tenyo.

Quite a few of them.but prison box
really fooled me badly.

Out of all of them, Diabolicus has fooled me by far the most! It was performed countless times in front of me and I had no idea how he knew what symbol I was choosing. Once I finally learned the secret, I thought it was extremely clever. I never bought the trick, but now I realize that I should have. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to come up that often on Ebay.

John

See that's interesting to me, I have a pretty decent patter for Diabolicus and my Wife figured it out in 10 minutes.

Little kids (my favorite audience love it though. Little kids are the best because they believe in magic!

At one time I had about five duplicate copies of "Mirage," so I pried one open to see how it worked inside. Very clever mechanism. I think that even though it's a big weird hunk of plastic, it fools magicians.

You have break and open the props for mirage ? if yes can you explain in pv how it work ? I never understand and I'm pretty curious. I have only one so I can open it Xd

Richard, do you have any of the cards left used in the penetration? I have a Mirage, but do not have the cards nor the instructions.

Thanks -

Mark

I've seen/owned many of them, and I'm not afraid to say that I've been fooled MANY times. Very creative, I think that's why we're all here.