Passing Thru by Kevin Parker - A Review by Loren Wade

The Effect
"Performer places the edge of a coin against the glass of a bottle and the spectator sees it start to enter the bottle little-by-little, part of itself in the bottle and part out, until it visibly falls out of the magician's hand into the bottle, the whole process visible through the glass and undeniable. Bottle with coin inside is then handed to them for examination and to keep. They will not find any holes or slits in the bottle." - Kevin Parker

The Review
My first impression upon watching the teaching video was how simple this effect really is. Kevin teaches you everything from beginning to end. He's very thorough, but not so thorough that you die of boredom. He only teaches you what you need to know. He first shows you the effect, then he shows you how it works, then he shows you how to perform it.

The gimmick is easy to make from household items (or easily bought). It's not that hard to get or that hard to hide either. The performance requires the slightest bit of misdirection and sleight of hand. Nothing that the aspiring or veteran magician can't handle. In fact, I would highly suggest this to a beginner as it would help them get their bearings on the magic world and performing sleight-of-hand. It also teaches the beginner an effect that will blow people away when he learns to perform it well. In fact, the effect is so good, the beginner will be bummed out when they try to buy other effects that don't live up to the classic coin-into-bottle.

The entire effect is so easy. I know I keep reiterating "easy", but I can't help it. It just is. With 5 minutes of practice and setup, you can go out, borrow a bottle and a quarter and perform this. Seriously 5 minutes. I can't stress how simple and effective this trick is. I think Kevin has created a winner here. When you're all done, the spectator's mind will be fried. They'll wonder how you did this one for a long, long time.

Included
- One video over 12 minutes long, teaching you how to create the gimmick and how to perform the effect from beginning to end.
- Overall value: Video quality is good and the teaching is great.

Difficulty
- Very easy to learn and perform. A beginner could perform this.
- Overall difficulty: Pretty much anyone could do this.

Price and Value
- Considering purchasing Bullet, a similar effect, on Ellusionist is $25, this is still a good deal at $6.95. Kevin could very easily have charged more for this effect, but it's still only 10 bucks.
- Overall value: Very good.

Pros
- Easy
- Visual
- Cheap
- Clean
- Will blow people away
- Gimmick is easy to make
- Only $6.95

Cons
- Requires a gimmick
(which is made by easy-to-get items)

Recommendation
Overall, I think I would recommend this to some of my friends.

Summary
Kevin Parker has created a visual penetration of a coin into bottle (glass, no less). He's created a much better coin into bottle than others have. It's very unique, but still a classic or common effect one would see magicians perform today. It's magical, it's fun, it's easy. What's not to like? Go spend the $6.95 from reselling an old DVD you don't use anymore and pick this up.

Just bought Abyss & Factory Sealed today & now I'm interested in this as it's a glass bottle.
I've read the reviews on Passing Thru & what would be really useful I think is a list of bottles & coins that work best with the effect from those who have it. A lot of you are stateside so it would be nice to see suggestions from different parts of the world so as to please everybody.

Suggestion from the U.S. - Sobe bottle works great. I prefer a quarter due to high visibilty combined with easy handling.

I've had this for awhile and it's one of those tricks that really wow'd my wife (and anyone that's used their wife for a test audience for any length of time knows how difficult that can be!). For 3 bucks people should be snapping this up for sure.

I bought downloads of passing thru, canz and nexus in 2006 and tried to watch passing thru once again this evening. I have still the user name and password. But now the downloads were "deactivated". How is that possible? The lesson is probably never by downloads. Buy DVDs. Knut

I recently received this with DVD. It is really excellent. I think that this and prohibition are the two best coin in bottle effects.
KJ