According to the thread I read, the personal tragedy was not Dill's accident, it happened before the accident. Whatever it was, it must have been devastating to last this long. The turnaround time for Lassen depends on how big and how custom your order is according to my past experience. A lot of times he will have shells and flippers and things of this sort in stock because he makes them in batches and he makes extras.

Todd, I did see a difference in design such as the gravity one uses a 45 degree trench cut versus the Schoolcraft's "L" cut. Also the fixed portion was cut at an angle with a more zig zag cut compared to a straight cut on my Schoolcraft one.

While I do recognize some difference in design, to me they were just tangential to the operation of the coin. I did not notice any operational improvement and still contend that the coins are too similar to really draw any substantive distinction.

I am not going to take the position that some people take and try to bash one guys design, when the truth is, they both look and work very similarly.

"they both look and work very similarly"

Sorry Dan, can't buy that at all, not even close or I wouldn't have bothered mentioning it. I was one of the first to actually own the new Lassen design, he gave it to me to road test about a year before he decided to release them. I LOOOOVVVVVVE it! When magicians see the guts of the thing, their eyes pop out every time. ART in it's truest form.

So, what do you do, show the inner workings to your audiences?

Hey Todd, no worries my friend, I am not asking you to buy my opinion. I am not trying to have anyone buy my opinion. People know who I am and can judge my opinion for what it is worth. I have many quality gaffs from both sources, all top notch stuff. I have no problem giving credit where credit is due.

I will remain by my original assessment: Both coins open via gravity, both stay open under their own weight, both don't have a rubber band in the edge. They are functionally duplicates.

Maybe some people's opinion of art is straight lines or zig zags, some people's idea of art is L cuts or angled cuts. I think focusing on the "art” of the inside of the open coin is focusing meaningless minutia. That’s the part no one is ever supposed to see. I care about function. Art is something I hang on my wall… I perform magic with my coin gaffs.

The cutting on a flipper whether it is visible or not is not a matter. I don't think anyone will hand their flipper to spectator for inspection.

Pete,
If you read above I never said anything about audiences seeing the inner workings. I said that about magicians not audiences...MAGICIANS don't PAY MY BILLS LAY AUDIENCES DO!

I love Bob Swadling's Coin Vanish under a glass routine. I have been wanting to get a Schoolcraft's Flipper for this effect. Maybe I'll have to get both!

I like my flipper to pretty much dangle open when I pick it up by the edges. It just seems to be easier to handle that way, at least for the types of routines I've been doing. To that avail, I ended up replacing the stock ru**er b**d that came with my Johnson with a lighter version that I bought through a dental supply company online. Now all I have to do is hold the coin by its edges and it opens.