When Brian over at Creative Magic asked me for permission to include my Spitball Catch (as seen in Mind FX) along with a couple other routines in their new Change Cap, I was only too happy to do. Not because I think it’s a fantastic prop at a great price (it is at just $24.95). But because they agreed to my outrageous bribe. When I mentioned that I’d like, “a young virgin, a suitcase full of cash, 2 monkeys and 23 gallons of Criscoâ€, I didn’t expect them to actually follow through. How foolish of me to underestimate the creative folks behind the Shadow Tent and producers of Dan Martin’s Bruised.
Independent of their clever bribe and the inclusion of my routine, I highly recommend this prop. For those not familiar with the basic premise of a change bag, I’ll explain it: It’s a device, usually a bag with a handle, that lets you secretly switch one or more items for another. If you wanted to force a prediction on someone (let’s say an image used in Ghost Vision, ahem) you would place several pieces of paper with the force image in one chamber and then several random images in the other. After showing the random images you secretly switch them for the force ones. When a spectator reaches in to pull out a “random†image, they really only have one choice. And that’s just one of the hundreds of applications for a change bag. Books on mentalism are filled with many other examples. There’s tons of non-mentalism applications as well. The well-produced booklet that comes with the Change Cap includes a half-dozen cool ideas. I’d love to see B and the folks at Creative Magic come out with a DVD with more ideas using the cap.
The cap is well-made and completely innocent looking. Unlike most change bags that look exactly like magic props, the cap looks like a natural innocent object. This is good because the last person to see a bag with a handle on it in any situation other than a magic show died shortly after the Crusades. I would have no problem putting the cap into my own act (and plan to do so). In experimenting with it, I found that I could put an object as a large as a deck of cards and switch it for another using the cap. This alone as endless possibilities. If you use the cap as an excuse to not actually handle the cards you could have a spectator reach inside, take out and shuffle the deck then return it. You could then turn to another spectator and have them pull out a switched deck that’s in a pre-arranged stack or some other configuration. Minds could be blown with just a simple switch.
I highly recommend this item. For a mere $24.95 you’ll get a solid prop that has infinite applications. It’s worth much, much more.