I am still waiting for Tommy Wonder's ingenious hold-out lock to be marketed. It is fully described in his magisterial book, but making one seems a bit beyond my current metalworking skill set.

Mac,

Keith Stickley makes a lock. He occassionally has them for sale. I have one and can recommend it. Woland, it's a Wonder-style lock. F/K design . . . way better BTW.

http://www.keithmagic.com/

I'm no engineer, nor a deep thinker. I focus more on rehearsal than some. For me, that is what makes the difference. ALL of the real work on the Hold-Out has been done by F & K here, in this country. Antonio and Michel have lots and lots of work as well. I prefer the F/K approach but still think Michel is to be lauded for releasing at an everyman cost, his work.

I should be moving to Florida by the time you move to California.

It took me nearly three years to come up with the C&B routine and another two months to document it. The three ball routine moves are nothing more than a subset of the cups stuff. Chop cup/one cup routine of mine is again a distillation of the moves from Fun Shop.

Coin and card stuff I do with the hold-out . . . shhhh . . . gotta see that stuff live.

No book from me. Too much magic to do and discover. Thanks for the compliments. Most think I'm a whack-job for my approach.

KG

Your Chop Cup doesn't appear to be on youtube. I don't actually do the cups but your posts on the subject have got me thinking. Sometimes jumping outside the box is the only way to move forward.

Would you say a lock is vital to using a holdout, in either close-up or parlor?

If you can elaborate, why is it the FK is better than Wonder's?

Mac,

The lock is not necessary if you can remove a long portion of the business end of the HO quickly and while getting your next prop. If you don't have the F/K, you're probably out of luck here.

The F/K lock is simply a much better and more reliable design. Works every time. Plus I have an F/K set and don't own any original Tommy Wonder stuff. I have two models built from the admittedly simplistic pictures in the Books of Wonder. I suspect the one Tommy Wonder made worked great. The two models I have did not work reliably enough.

I'll post the Chop Cup routine soon. It's pretty short.

KG

that's a big if.



As well it should be!

It would seem as though if its not an FK holdout its not entirely practical.

Well, yes...and no.

Over the years I've used a homemade gravity holdout, Antonio Romero's intriguing holdout, and the Vernet holdout, all with and without the Stickley/Wonder holdout lock. Each did the job, each had plusses and each had minuses. (The Stickley/Wonder lock resolved some--but not all--of the minuses.)

I now use the F/K holdout, and while it has solved a myriad of problems, it's not entirely perfect. Heck, what is? But thus far I've neither found nor devised anything better. But who knows what the future may bring? ;-)

As an aside, Kent's POV regarding the holdout itself being only half the "bargain" of the F/K system is spot on--the instructional DVDs are an integral part of the system as well. Without them it would be like owning an iPhone but only having an owner's manual for a pager to guide you. I've study the Ed Mishell book and Michel's "Invisible Hand" DVDs--which are excellent, BTW--but the F/K DVDs are a PhD program in holdout-ology.

Finally, for purposes of full disclosure, I've not used any of these holdouts in connection with a C&B routine or any related cousins (chop cup, etc.). But I am presently experimenting with my F/K holdout to see if I can come up with a better solution to a magically weak moment in my "Magic Idol" hybrid Benson bowl/bill in lemon routine.