I heard of coins, cards, canes, balls, and thimbles being manipulated, but what else is there to manipulate that is a little more risky and more of a challenge? Oh and don't say the spectators cuz that isn't funny

Wikiro

Doves!

Hmmm... sounds good I'll add that to the list. What else is you there?

Look it up in books you will be surprised what you find! The Tarbell set is great for things like this.

Tarbell?

Masks,
Baloons,
Silks,
Bottle tops (substituted for thimbles),
Top Hat manipulation (spinning)
Business cards,

All you need to do is use your imagination.

Items that I have seen manipulated (or have actually manipulated myself) include:
Band-Aids
Soap Bubbles
Pipes (corncob, clay, meerschaum, etc)
Cigars Cigarettes
Burning Candles
Bic Lighters (any cigarette lighter)
Silk Handkerchiefs
Rope
Rings (finger, moderate and large size)
Shot glasses (full of drink)
Regular size (12 to 16 oz) glasses full of a beverage
Bottles (full)
Poker chips
Knives
Jumbo safety pins
Sunglasses
Hand Bells
Wands
Clown Nose
Sponge rabbits
Fire

This is not an exhaustive list but I have seen examples of each in performance. You want risk or difficulty? Try to make any (ANY) manipulation act interesting! Now THAT is difficult!

Cigars
Bic Lighters
Knives
Fire
Wands

these sound interesting where can learn on these Items?

silks maybe
hat maybe

Wikiro

For Cigar manipulation try Karrol Fox’s “Foxy Cigars”. It is routine using two dummy cigars that keep appearing and vanishing and ends with a pipe appearing in the performers mouth. It uses a couple of very simple thimble moves. Many thimble moves can be done with these props.

A couple of “Fickle Fire” gimmicks and some flash paper and an appearing torch will give you the basics of an act manipulating fire (hand to hand, etc).

Knives? I watched an old hand do an entire cigarette act using pocketknives! His cigarette manipulation act no longer played because most of his venues were non-smoking so rather than give up on years of practice he bought a dozen pocket knives and did his routine using the knives. It played well. He went from the color changing knives into the manipulation routine.

The smaller BIC style lighter is easily manipulated using cigarette moves. They are also easy to gimmick (plastic is an easy medium to glue to). Fantasio even makes blue, yellow, and red BIC shells (color change, silk to BIC, BIC to match, etc!).

Wands, the people who supply you with the manipulating canes usually supply the manipulating wands. My set is from the now defunct Magic Hands in Germany.

My multiplying lighters are custom-made stainless steel rectangles and are hinged and finger bracketed in the same manner as the standard multiplying candles. And they work exactly the same as the multiplying candles. You take out a silver lighter, light it and it multiplies, jumps from hand to hand, and finally eight are found between the fingers of both hands.

Mine have holders that secure them under my jacket and drop them into the proper position in my hand. They were custom made in the mid 70’s. The guy who made them may have made as many as 50 sets and sold them. He made multiplying candles and I told him I wanted a multiplying cigarette lighter. He produced one. If you are interested I will email you photos of them. I doubt if you will ever see these again. While not one of a kind, I don’t know of anyone that has a set! They are for sale but they are not cheap!

Children’s crayons can be manipulated using the standard cigarette manipulation moves. Take a fairly standard cigarette routine and simply replace the cigarettes with crayons, candies (Tootsie Rolls), Golf tee’s, Sharpie marking pens, and on and on. The slights and routines are all the same! It is only the object being manipulated that is different!

Heck, Slydini’s broken and restored cigarette routine can be adapted to using crayons!

These ideas ought to get you thinking and thinking out of the box!

Go for it!

I want to learn cigar manipulations because I know a way to rig a cigar to shoot retractable confetti.

I want to learn Lighter manipulation because I think lighters are interesting objects, and I would love to see your manipulatable lighters, Mumblepeas.

I like knives also better than cigarettes because I don't smoke.

Crayons are also a nice little touch for the young people.

I want wand manipulation because no magician should be without his wand (not a Harry Potter thing, hehe)

I think that fire also gives magic a great flare.

Wikiro

Wands! I agree with you about wands. I love them, use them and am not embarrassed to say so!

The wand could be magically produced. They can be produced say, from midair (an appearing wand) or from a small purse (any one of a dozen methods-I like Cellini’s method and also Gene Anderson’s version, and use them both).

Learn a good wand spin. It is a flourish and a utility move for vanishing a ball (cups and ball) or a coin (Flying Eagles) or whatever.

Learn the strike vanish. It is a utility move for vanishing anything small.

Learn a “Flip-Stick” routine. There are at least three on tape or in books. Basically the wand vanishes and reappears.

Maybe learn a good “splitting” the wand into two bit. There are actual commercial versions of this available. But you should be able to pull it off with a little timing and misdirection!

Build a routine from those bits and you have all the wand magic you will need!

A good book on cigarette manipulation will give you all the slights you need for the manipulation of any of the crayons, knives, or BIC style lighters you want. Go learn the basics and start building a routine.

As soon as I can I will photograph my lighters. I won’t expose the gimmick, but you will get the idea! It will be a while before I get to it be patient.

So work on your wand routine first. Then build. It won’t cost you much. Mainly practice!

Go for it!

Where can I get a wand that has a lot of gimmicks added to it? Because I will only, and I mean only, use one wand...well...unless it breaks of course

Wikiro

I don’t understand what gimmicks you want on a wand. Some wands are built to vanish a silk, others to produce a coin (and then vanish it again), and some have a magnet or two built into them for obvious reasons. Most wands are just sticks! They are used as a prop while your hands do whatever. For example, the wand is used in the strike vanish. The vanish is slight of hand the wand is the misdirection.

Do you even know what you want your wand to do or how you plan to use it? It sounds like you haven’t given this a lot of thought yet. There is no one-wand-fits-all wand out there that I am aware of. There may be a few multiple gimmick wands out there but I am unaware of where you might find them.

You will probably have to design and build (or have built for you) your own wand. I think that you ought to figure out what your act is before you buy a prop!

One wand? What’s that about? I am sitting here typing this and looking at my bookshelf. I have a large mug that holds 14 different wands of varying sizes, shapes, made of various materials and some even “do something”. I will use a specific wand for a specific character and/or specific act.

Wikiro,

If you take your one wand, and go to a mirror, many of the things that Mumblepeas mentioned can be done:

a good wand spin
strike vanish
“Flip-Stick” routine

These are all killer basics that you'll use many times, many ways. You can add even more to these ... but the moves mentioned above will be plenty to chew on.

Later, by adding cigarette and/or thimble manip lessons to your agenda, you are also getting the absolute "must" basics for the other routines and props, as Mumblepeas pointed out.

I sense a need for focus in your posts. The things above will give you a solid place to work from. You can't go wrong by selecting one and jumping in.

I have mentioned Mumblepeas name a few times in this post, because he has offered generous advice as to where you might start.
From where I sit - it looks like he's a guy to defer to regarding manips.

You came to the right place to ask! As soon as you put the props in your hands and start getting familier with these moves, you'll get some instant gratification. It will be exciting to hear that your act is coming along! Good luck!

pp

I manipulate CD's it is a good effect

I would use one wand and one wand only because I have a nice little story line that goes with the wand and if I switch the wands the story doesn't hold true.

I think the wand should do many things and those things are:
-vanish
-grow
-shrink
-produce sparks or some kind of fire effect
-go through items (like the pen or cig through coin)
-teleports
-and works as a two way radio no just kidding
I know that this is probably impossible to add all these together, and it sound like a kid magicians dream but I like the Idea and Ill try but first I need money so I'm going to work see ya all for a week.

Wikiro

Wikiro, I don’t think that it’s a kids dream. From our dreams come our inventions. In fact, that’s not a horribly long list of things for a wand to do. Many of your “wants” can be performed with an ungimmicked wand.

“Flip-Stick” is a vanish of the wand (ungimmicked) at your fingertips and have it appear elsewhere (vanish and teleportation).

The penetration effect is rather standard. Penetration through a handkerchief can be done with an ungimmicked wand. The penetration through a coin, block, and body can be done with a very easily made gimmick (good only on straight sided wands) that creates the illusion of penetration.

The shrinking wand will use the same gimmick and create the illusion that the wand shrinking against the palm of your hand rather than penetrating it. You will need a second wand (the shrunk or smaller version) if you are going to hand it out or lay it on a table. So a switch out is needed. I know that you are thinking of some kind of telescoping wand (like an antenna) but trust me they don’t look very good and cannot be used close-up.

Reverse the shrinking wand and you have a growing wand.

The fire effects can be had with a “double-bang” wand (or even a “single bang” version). However, think that having to buy flash paper and/or flash cotton and the hassle of properly storing it is a bit of a bother. There is a nice electronic double flash wand on the market that creates a rather startling flash of light. There is also a “Delight” wand out there that lights up. Both should be considered. If you really want fire, then gimmick the prop that is going to burn not the wand, use the wand to trigger the flames. No big deal and keeps the wand “clean”

OK, so here it is! In one wand using only two gimmicks (a home made shrinking/penetrating/stretching gimmick and a flash gimmick) you can perform everything that you want and more!

I think that once you learn some basics of misdirection and manipulation you will find that your wand will do many more miracles than you listed.

For example finger rings placed on the body of your magic wand will become linked as they slide off into your hand, objects will vanish just by taping them, ropes wrapped around the wand and then around a volunteers body will penetrate the body just by removing the wand, cards will float out of the deck with the help of the wand, and…oh I could go on and on for pages, but you get the idea.

Where would I turn for a good resource in sleight of hand with Cig Lighters?
Just wondering, I have been playing with my lighter for a while.

Lighters would be cool, and I saw a CD manipulation on a Lance Burton special.

What I am researching is the manipulation of billiard balls. I can see the whole act in my head, making the pool stick appear, the balls, the triangle thing - then in the end an entire pool table!

I never thought of manipulating crayons - hmmmmmm . . .

-Primoshock

Brian, I don’t know what kind or size of cigarette lighter you use, but I found that the smaller BIC disposable lighter (and similar brands) could be manipulated with the same slights as a cigarette. I have small hands and can do most standard vanishes and productions with a BIC lighter. I have played with a standard Zippo but never actually put one into performance, YET! I have just bought a used Ring-to-Zippo prop to include in a bar routine and am thinking that I might have to start playing with Zippo’s again! Hummmm.

This summer, I watched a young magician do the Slydini cigarette routine, move for move, using a BIC lighter. We were sitting in the hall of a convention talking about impromptu magic (and showing off for each other) when this “kid” takes my lighter and does the whole routine. He was flawless! I actually saw Slydini perform that little sequence and have it on videotape and I believe that the old man would have been proud!

My multiplying lighter set is just that, a multiplying lighter set. It is a one trick pony. It is performed exactly the same as the multiplying candles. For some reason, years ago, almost every stand-up magician was doing the candles so I had the lighters made. I included the sequence in a cigarette manipulation routine (Misers Dream with cigarettes). When I went to light my cigarette the lighter acted up, jumped from hand to hand, and multiplied from one to 8! By the way, did I mention that I don’t smoke (never have!)?