I would like to purchase a beginner set of cups and balls for a young friend.
Any recommendations: company? brand? magic shop?
Thank you!
Tom Mason

Beginner as in learning the Vernon routine or beginner as in learning the gallup and maybe a false transfer?

FWIW some very good magi have used the little plastic set.

If sleight of hand is the lesson then finding the right sized mini baseballs, crochet cover, or monkey fist cord covered balls is probably a better start than a cup set.

The truth is, most 20 to 60 dollars aluminium/brass 'cheap' sets will work great. By the time they start being beat up and dinged they'll have learned and done the routine so many times it'll be high time for an upgrade for themselves.

All sets as far as I know come with 4 - usually crocheted - balls that are pretty much standard size. Unless your 'young friend' is like 7 or 8 they won't have issues handling them and it'll set them up to learn the slights with the 'right size' props straight away.

What - I think - is more important, is the source of learning for the routine. Someone like Vernon (if they like reading) or Ammar (if they like watching) is what I'd be sure to pick alongside that set of cups - and they'll end up knowing one of the strongest classical routines. I'm sure your friend will have LOTS of fun learning the routine.
Getting either sources of learning if I recall will set you up with proper techniques for transfers, vanishes, and 'cups moves' (like the gallop mentioned above).

My first set was the Adams plastic cups. Perfect for learning the basics as a young fella. Then, I got the Morrissey aluminum set. IMHO, a perfect transition to the next level. Then, I went with the Morrissey copper. I wanted heavier cups.

All those years ago, the selection out there was nothing like what you can get today.

Thank you so much... all very helpful!

I wish there was a way to convince manufacturers to include heavier balls in "beginners" sets.

Light crocheted balls that bounce and blow around make the beginner's task much more difficult when trying to balance the routining, the sleights, and the audience management.

My first suggestion to someone just starting out with the Uday or the cheap Morrissey cups would be to find some heavier balls of the same size that came with the cups.

One of my busking acquaintances suggested small round beanbags, and I thought that was a great idea (although probably a bit tricky to acquire)

Oh, another thing I forgot. If you're gifting a Cups and Balls set, remember to also buy them a wand. It's NECESSARY for the routine, and nothing will deflate them more than having a nice looking set of cups and having to 'fashion an impromptu wand out of a celery stalk or an asparagus spear' to learn some moves.

I think I can beat that. Mine were the blue "Flower Pots" from a 1960 Sneaky Pete magic set.

By & large, you might want to consider 90+% of the effect takes place with the final loads in the eyes of your spectators.

This is a true case of where "less is more"...

I was just thinking that Cups and Balls and Linking Rings are the two most important sets of apparatus in magic history (IMHO) and most everyone has their favorite. It is similar to the Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Ron Bauer's Basic Cups and Balls Technique booklet is a good beginners routine.

How old is the "young friend" that you're buying for? That information would be helpful in suggesting a set.

Regardless of age, I think that starting out with the simple "one ahead" routine would give anyone some experience and confidence in handling the cups. The routine could also include some of the classic cup moves like "cup thru cup" and "wand thru cup." I also think the suggestion someone's already made about including a wand in the set is a very good one. And even a "one ahead" routine can include a final load, so the young magi can get some experience with misdirection, too.

Even a small plastic S.S. Adams or Royal Magic set is OK for starters, and it will take a golf ball or a "C" battery for a final load. You will just need to replace the little cotton puff balls that come with the set, with some crocheted ones that are heavier and easier to work with. Just make sure that they're the right size to fit into a cup's attic.

I also suggest that you personally show your friend how to handle the cups and do the one-ahead routine. Once he/she shows enough interest in them to continue on to a full sleight-of-hand routine, you can think about getting either a book or video with more advanced information. I thought the Ammar book and/or DVD set was excellent, but it's getting tough to find and is also expensive. Although I haven't seen Daryl's two-volume "Master Course in the Cups & Balls," I'm sure it's equally good and it can be obtained in either DVD's or as a download for about $30.

Thanks for spreading the joy of magic, and please let us know how things work out! SETH

I had two more thoughts about the recent cups and balls inquiry. First, I took a look at Volume 1 of Daryl’s “Master Class in Cups & Balls” DVD, and I thought it was quite good. Perhaps it’s not as quite as well organized as Ammar’s book and DVD’s that also include several full routines, but it does contain all the basic moves and some good tips. It’s also very well done – well photographed with lots of good closeups, and the sound is fine. It’s a worthwhile buy for $15.

I also had a thought about Daryl’s recommendations for buying a C&B set. He basically suggests getting cups that can take the largest final load possible. While I agree that you want to finish with impressive final loads, I also think that what you produce is more important than how big it is. Even with a set of the small plastic Royal Magic cups, I was able to use a “C” battery as a final load, and it always produced a good reaction. So while fruit is always fine, find something unusual for a final load!

Also on the cup size issue: in my opinion, one very good way to determine what size cups to buy is to first figure out what size balls to get, which depends in turn on the size of your hands. You want to have balls that you can easily and precisely use with an FP, without any dropping or flashing. Most magic shops sell a variety of sizes, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting a size that’s comfortable and proper for you. In addition to selecting a cup size that will hold one or two balls in the cup’s attic, you also need to make sure there’s a good visual relationship between the size of the balls and the size of the cups. Having balls that look too small for the size of the cups isn’t a good optic. So either buy larger balls or smaller cups! SETH

A lot of great advice here.

Remembering back when I started, I would have loved to have a professional-looking combo set that would have enabled me to do the most very basic routine commonly demonstrated with the plastic cups, but offering me the opportunity to work up to more advanced routines... and already owning the set that will allow me to do so. Much like a young musician given her or his first instrument just to start with practicing scales, but given the tool to perform a symphonic masterpiece.

Probably like many C&B workers, I graduated from a Royal Magic small plastic set to a larger Uday aluminum set, and then to a Bazar De Magia brass set (which cost about $45 back in the day, when $45 was a lot of money). Of course, it's possible to spend a lot more on very fine CNC cups, cups crafted from stainless steel, silver or copper, and even engraved cups. Unfortunately, some folks think that better (read more expensive) cups will make them better magicians. While this is probably true to a small extent, it’s also true that someone like Slydini or Daryl could run rings around any other C&B worker, using nothing more than a set of small plastic S.S. Adams cups or even paper Dixie cups. But the cups don’t make the magi – the magi makes the cups!

I agree it makes sense to start out with something decent, so your props aren't holding you back from doing certain sleights well or making certain loads easily. But I also think some people can get enamored with the props and get carried away. Most specs do not know or care what your cups are made of, who made them, or how much they cost; they just want to know how the heck the oranges, lemons and potatoes got under the cups.

The other problem is that when you’re first starting out on your C&B journey, you don’t know what you want or need. Should you get classic P&L-style cups, which have roomy attics but relatively small space for final loads? Or the Paul Fox type of cups, which enable large loads but may be small on attic space? Do you want copper, brass, chrome, steel, aluminum, plastic or wood cups? What size balls do you need? And do you want cork balls, leather balls, crocheted balls, sponge balls, monkey balls, mini-baseballs or something else (coffee beans, artificial olives, crumpled-up dollar bills, etc.)? What type of final loads will you use? All these things figure into what sort of cups to buy, but the answers to these questions aren’t obvious until you’ve played around with a C&B set for a while and discover what works well for you.

For what it’s worth, I finally arrived at the brass Bazar De Magia cups because they have a nice heft to them, are durable and don’t dent or scratch easily, unlike the softer aluminum cups. They ring out nicely when hit with a magic wand or tapped together, and they don’t need to be polished frequently like copper cups do. They weren’t cheap, but they weren’t overly expensive, either. Their modified Paul Fox design provides enough room for lacrosse balls to be used as colorful, impressive and solid final loads, and they still give that great optical illusion of the cup being too small to contain the ball when a ball is displayed on top of the cup. And I got a set of red crocheted balls from Rings & Things that are a good size for my hands, and are also a good size relative to the size of the cups. But I didn’t know any of these things until I wore out my plastic cups and my aluminum cups! SETH

A lot of good advice… let us know how things go with your friend.

Best regards,
Bruce

Thank you everyone! All great advice!

the young friends are children of friends who are involved in mission work in Northern Ireland, Vienna and Sofia Bulgaria.
So the beginner magic that I am bringing (most of if gifted/donated to me) is for these young kids to help them get started into magic.
The cups and balls will be the "blue yellow red" plastic beginner cups.

I am looking forward to it!

Thank you all for your thoughts and ideas.

Tom
Des Moines Iowa

Tom… I think most of us began with the multi colored Cups…. Nothing wrong with that.
Best regards,
Bruce

This reminded me of the evolution of John Mendoza's routine for the "special" cups & balls set. His first routine met with derision because many magicians were quick to point out that it could be duplicated without the special addition to the cup(s).

This prompted John to develop a second routine that could not be duplicated cleanly without the special addition.