Performing a quickie double back for the students for fun on my break.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=101......84972567

12 years in magic and I still have not tried this effect. Just lazy on my part.

Kids and adults both go nuts. that's not at all how I perform it at gigs though. Kids caught me off guard on m yway to the staff room n a rush. lol It's Dr. Daley's Last trick on heavy steroids!

This is a great effect and I remember when Barry Taylor showed this to me years ago in front of my neighborhood Starbucks. It's a killer but not gaffless. Dr. Daley admonished that improvements in magic usually come with a price.

Truly think Doc Daley (and Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, for that matter):D would absolutely love this one, despite the little extra. And to be able to move the needle from "nice trick" to absolute impossibilia so easily, well, is quite worth it, IMHO.

It's sorta like being able to also grow seedless grapes and already ripe bananas on an apple tree, or something like that.

Back to card magic after thirty years. This is an awesome effect, and certainly accessible to this born-again beginner. And I actually have what I need for it in my card collection already. Thanks for posting this!

Les

I haven't been able to find repositionable glue sticks at Staples in Toronto. But Elmer's makes something similar, and it seems easy enough to find:

http://www.michaels.com/Elmer’s-Reposi......,pd.html

This seems to be more of a scrap-booking thing than an office supply thing, so I think craft shops like Michaels are a good bet.

Les

Just dug out a suitable gimmick and an old Pinochle deck (hence the needed duplicate). Lip balm (Chapstick in my case) is a little slicker, but the cards hold position and the cards don't talk on separating. Drawback is that this should be wiped off and reapplied (I worry about the petrolatum staining the cards or attracting dirt), and I don't know how many times you can repeat with a single application. Still it was adequate for me to get into the trick tonight just with what I had lying around.

If you twist them slightly to separate rather than pulling straight apart, it greatly reduces the noise.

I also got a small chunk of beeswax with a (not terribly good) Magic Makers IT trick. (I should have saved my fourteen bucks and put it toward a supply of higher quality IT and IET, but that's another topic…) A tiny pellet schmeered over the centre of the cards in question then spread by rubbing the surfaces together. It is sticky enough, isn't greasy or fragrant like the lip balm, and, surprisingly, doesn't talk much when I simply pry the cards apart. There is the tiniest click, but no horrifying scratch. Still, I am off to a craft store tonight to get the Elmer's repositionable glue stick.

You also have what you need in the package when you purchase the effect. Buying the effect that you really like is called 'doing the right thing'. Instead, you're trying to make up your own and are having trouble finding the right stuff to make it work. You'll also be missing out on all the subtleties and presentational tips that make it really powerful. I guess that doesn't concern you if you can save about $20?

The strap line for here is 'Magicians helping magicians'. Why are you coming on here telling everyone you are essentially ripping me off?

Regards.
Jon Allen
Creator of Double Back

This is what I picked up tonight:

http://www.elmers.com/product/detail/E627

So far so good in my homemade mock-up of the trick. Goes on like the lip balm, sticks and unsticks like the beeswax. I don't know how well it approximates the original. I will find that out when mine finally arrives in the mail.

I wanted to avoid this, given the positive tenor of this thread, but given the excoriation I just received I should bring up the one down side of the trick: it is darn difficult to find. The usual suspects (Penguin, etc.) are either out of stock or plain just not stocking it. The creator of the effect sells his professional services on his webpage but not, from what I could see, his products. I did end up finding it through an Amazon reseller, albeit at a higher price.

As excuses go, that's as lame as they come. Several usual suspects stock it as found when I typed in 'double back Jon Allen' into Google.

If you go to the link in my signature at the end of my posts on here, you'll see www.onlinemagicshop.co.uk which takes you directly to the product area that is plainly listed as 'Magicians Only' on my website.

Excuse me while I lay down from all that exertion...

Thanks! That's you beat me to this. It was your sig, and not Google, that led me to that very URL, which oddly does not rank very high in a search with the very specifiers you used. Maybe Google.ca differs from Google.co.uk, but I get a whole bunch of Youtube links on the effect, THEN links to places that list the trick as out of stock (Vanishing Inc) or not being stocked anymore at all (Penguin). But this is how I found the Amazon sale, and why I went there even though a bookseller is hardly my first choice for purchasing stuff like this. And I was wrong about the Amazon pricing--it is higher than the online magic store pricing (USD15, less when discounted), but still a little less than your own. I hope this is okay.

Your concerns raise an interesting question that really needs to be clarified for a magic neophyte like me: is it unacceptable for the owner of the effect to make duplicates for personal use, to modify it suit his own preferences (e.g., my homemade version uses JC, JH, 10D, 10S on Tally fan-backs vs. the King/5-on-Bikes in the original), to refurbish it when necessary (viz. the foregoing discussion about modifying the adhesion issue), or to incorporate it into yet another effect of one's own devising? I have written Bob Kohler directly about replacement gaff cards for his Aces In Their Faces and have mentioned the various options, and I never got the sense from him that it was some moral or legal transgression for me to get custom cards done up from any of the usual providers. I kind of thought that when purchasing a trick we are purchasing the secret. In the case of Double Back, you didn't invent DF cards, and using temporary adhesion goes back to the days of diachylon. What you are compensated for when we purchase a Jon Allen effect is your unique application of old ideas, not the few cents worth of gaff cards and sticky stuff that a lot of us have already.

Though admittedly green about magic, I am seasoned both as a consumer and provider of products and services. From that perspective, I think it is fair to advise you that ungrounded assumptions regarding and ad hominem attacks on actual or potential customers is scarcely the most prudent thing to do in securing a livelihood or reputation, especially in a field where demand is far exceeded by supply. It is a little too much like biting the hand. You took to insulting me personally without knowing enough about the context of my comments. I am thrilled with your trick and am honoured to use it, but after this I can't speak so glowingly of you personally. But such is nature of art and artists, I guess--I still love Manhattan and Annie Hall, though I don't think much of their perverse creator.

Having clarified all this, I hope we can call this matter settled and go back to our regularly scheduled programme of honouring your excellent work.

I can't imagine why Jon would have an issue with anyone making up spare or replacement sets provided they had purchased it in the first place. I'm not sure why you bring that up at all, frankly.

I frequently see tricks advertised which it would be possible for me to reverse engineer. If I really like it, then I buy it, because the creator introduced me to the idea.

People pop up on here from time to time, bragging about how they have made their own version of a marketed trick, thus dodging the cost of purchasing it. It never played well in the past and it doesn't play well today. Not just with me, but with 99% of the people who use these boards.

In your position I would have ordered it already, and taken the discussion from there. You still seem to be at the stage of staring at it on the internet.

I had. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. But I did think I mention that I was excited to figure out that I could begin to work with the (purchased) idea pending the original's delivery. Which, since such such things are invariably prepaid, I do technically already own, even if I am awaiting possession of the actual thing. It was more the giddy enthusiasm of discovery, not bragging. I have nothing to brag about, since I didn't cleverly reverse engineer anything. Indeed, thanks to the wonders of the very Google search terms Mr. Allen himself used, no one has to--it's been done.

You are partly right. I am staring at the trick on the internet. But I do so as one who has already supported the product. It is an unfortunate reality of internet commerce that speed of processing payment greatly exceeds that of dispatching the item. I thought I was on the side of the angels here and that it was legitimate for me to leap into the dialogue though I didn't yet have the goodies in my eager hands and might not for another week or so. I am disinclined to advertise the illegitimate use of someone else's intellectual property. I may be green, but that doesn't make me stupid.

Which bit of this lends itself to anyone thinking you had bought it? Certainly not:

" And I actually have what I need for it in my card collection already."

If you did buy it then firstly, thanks and secondly, make it clear! If you have bought the original then I have no qualms about you making up further ones for your own use. I have had people who have bought my Silent Treatment email me asking if they can modify it I for their own use. Of course they can, having purchased the original.

Pleased to hear you bought it. That wasn't clear to me from your post. Thanks for clarifying matters.

Yikes! For someone who makes a living at communicating I have done a lousy job of being clear here. Really embarrassing. I took too much context for granted and set myself up to be misconstrued. To be safe I ordered another copy directly through the Jon Allen page (how I missed that URL in my searching is puzzling and embarrassing), and in passing splurged on the eye-popping Rule of Three. The latter is a wee bit pricier than most marketed effects, and I am in this for sheer duffer enjoyment and nothing more, but I anticipate years of pleasure in return. Moreover, I am completely nuts about the Phoenix Deck project, and I just have to support a product that capitalizes on that work. I am watching the mail eagerly, and I want to reassure Mr. Allen that I have gotten lots of stuff from the UK over the years and am sure that the Royal Mail-Canada Post standard combo will get it all here just fine, though he warns that sometimes things go missing.

Anyway, I have been duly schooled, and certainly will work on my clarity and diplomacy when commenting here on marketed tricks in the future.

Thanks, gents,

Les

Hi Les,

I received your order and sent both items out yesterday.

So often people on here, many anonymous, get into arguments over puerile stuff. It can get really serious in some cases. When I felt that you had made your own without purchasing the original, I was duly annoyed. However, it is nice to know that all was not as it seemed and it was just miscommunication. Thank you for your purchase and I'm happy that it's all resolved. All is good in the world

I know you will get a lot of use from Rule of Three and I hope you enjoy performing it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on RO3 once you have had a chance to work on it.

Cheers,
Jon