Scott O,



Yes, licking the nail is a real (and very old) method. If it didn’t work for you, you probably had too little light or too dull a nail. Try buffing your nail with one of those do-it-yourself buffers from a home manicure kit.



Another nice shiner at the dinner table is your knife. Stainless knives are great--spoons tend to be too distorted.

Hi Jonathan. This is known as a 'hijack'. It means you have used a thread which is about one subject to ask about another, instead of starting a new thread. It's a bit of a 'no no' around here (and most internet forums). I started this thread just as a survey about the plausibility of the coffee shiner idea, which I think is essentially impractical. That's its purpose.



Why not try a new thread, or ask a question in 'Good Bad Garbage'? Cheers.

Me bad, it is kind of modus operandi of all the other boards I go to. I apologize and plead ignorance. I hope you all will forgive me.



What do you all think? Is this really the way it should be? Let us know.

...just kidding! ha ha ha



Okay, back to the thread.



Jonathan Grant

While we’re on the subject of semi-practical shiners.... In an impromptu situation often I’ll find myself in a living room.

If I pretend to cover my eyes and turn around, many times there will be a great shiner right there -- a tv set (turned off of course). The curved screen gives a wide-angle view of the whole room. Obviously you can’t peek at a billet or card this way, but one thing I’ve done is to hand out some object (whatever’s on hand), tell them to pass it around and one person to hide it in their pocket. Then I turn back around, and the fun begins.



-Steve

Corinda mentions patent leather shoes, and Marlo mentions the wet thumb nail in Estimation. Problem is, you need a very strong light source BENEATH the card.

I originally saw the idea of using cofee as a shiner in an exposure show, done in London. Was that you Ian?
Curious I tried it, the angles are critical but occasionally they work
More important two people at different gigs accused me of using it even though the cofee was yards away.
Thanks
from
Ford

I drink a lot of black coffee generally all day and spend a lot of time in coffe shops and have had great success with this many many times. I have only encountered problems with it a few times. and those probablems were not lighting and that so much . It was during the first few times I tried this and was a little nervous I guess and focused on it too much and drew attention to what I was obviously doing. Since then I have gained the confidence in my performing and my timing is much better and the handling is much more natural . But yes it is a great idea that DOES work well from my experience. Now with that being said there are other factors that come to play. Such as how bold the writing is on the paper or card. and if you are reading the reflection upside down or oriented the right way. The color of the writing. Playing cards seem to be much easier to see than secret messages or what have you. Since we are all so familiar with cards they are easier to see at a very quick glimpse . There is a lot than can be done with this sort of thing. I could write about it all day. It is something I have played with for a few years now and have lots of thoughts on.

Because you forgot to paint all of your nails in black... and then apply some reflective nail polish.

Hmmm... This would probably work for Richard Bandler (provided he is still painting his nails in black!)




Ian,

Since London resurrected this old thread... Let me ask you - Have you tried with all colors of the iris? I ask that because my thinking is that raven black eyes would work well whereas light green or blue iris would be pretty impossible to make it work.

I was re reading some of the other post above about how it is not practical. I can see how it comes across that way at first glance but if you take the time and thought playing with it and trying different things it does in fact work. I have found a great way of giving myself time to peek and not drawing attention to it while at the same time directing lots of attention to it. What I mean by that. is I have learned to "create" a situation by which if I am standing at a table and working for someone sitting. I very casual handling of taking the card with the image of imfo on it with my left hand and at the same time casually sliding their cup of coffee off to the right with my right hand at almost the exact same moment the card is pulled beck over the cup. Saying do you mind if I move this so we don't knock it onto your lap. I say this as it is already being moved. so attention is drawn to the cup but after it is well away from the card and this seems to give the impression the card was never near the cup later on when they retell someone what happened. Not that they will mention the cup at on when retelling but in their minds it played no part so they forget it was even in the situation during the effect. I am not sure how this all sounds in writing but if you could see me do it you would get a better idea of the set up and situation that is created unnoticed. It is important when using this "open" shiner or any othe form of "open or visible" shiner not to acknowlegde it exist or at least appear not to ackowledge it. Hidden shiners can be a different animal all together. I have been considering putting a book together on the subject of shiners . All this talk about it is kinda making me want to dust off the old pages and work on it.

This is an open forum so no, it never works, never will and is a totally silly and unworkable idea.......

M

I'm sure this will work under the right conditions but it's not something you would rely on.

Just tried this with a cup of tea and a deck of cards on a cloudy day and could quite easily glimpse the bottom card. in the right circumstance this could work. Something to have at the back of your mind.

People with glasses are great

Me and Madison were performing an on the spot 2 person code-esque with playing cards, the participant chooses a card from the deck, Madison would flash the card at a particular time and we had a good laugh with it - One of the people said, "are you looking in the reflection of my glasses or something?"

I laughed it off and proceeded to do just that to great success afterwards! Doing a massive goth club on Friday, while the lighting wouldn't be ideal, I'm sure the dark shades will be marvelous!

DC