I live in Taiwan, a country where no-one can find out things that they don't know; if you want something that's a little different than normal, forget about it!

I'm sure most people are aware that for a lot of basic mentalism effects you can utilise some business cards and a fat elastic band. It's a special elastic band, it has to be tight enough around the cards and the right fatness....

But I can't find them, anywhere. Shops here just don't stock this size of bands (I like the way so many magic instructions talk about "easy to find items", not for me they aren't!)

Any idea where I can get these from using the power of the internet? I even asked Penguin if they had any lying around to throw a couple in my next order but no such luck.

Hmmm..Have you looked in a food store ?

Look around the produce section...here they are used to hold brocolli (spelling).

Also your mail service may have them

SwankyG, if you can't purchase the properly sized rubber bands, you can compensate with the more narrow rubber bands by winding them several times around the gimmick. This will hide the special something, and look perfectly natural.

Go to an office supply store ?

I buy the variety packs of rubber bands and they are in there along with many others I need.


Juliegel

Are you trying to do the out to lunch?? For quite some time I got away with just one fairly big one and just wrapped it around sort of messy. I would reccomend the out to lunch clip sold here on penguin for 8 bucks I believe

Yes, it's an out to lunch style effect, although I've been calling it the genie - I got it from Mark Wilson but I thought the genie theme was kind of corny though. Do you mean the "out to dinner clip", I couldn't find an out to lunch clip? That's a good idea, I like the professional feel.

Office supply stores don't stock that kind of band here, I think apart from the clip the only place would be e-bay. However I don't know what kind of band the out to lunch needs. Anyone know the band number?

In the meantime I'll try twisting bands around. I'll have to use multiple bands though, no long ones here either. Every where you go in Taiwan they only sell two sizes. In hundreds of different colors.

The Out to Dinner Clip is from Doc Eason. I've heard it's fine. However, according to people who have purchased this, your business cards must be no wider than 2 inches, or the clip won't fit properly. You'd have to trim your cards to fit it.

Another alternative would be this: http://themagicwarehouse.com/LP4678/Stockholder*.htm

Which is what I prefer. It's a little expensive, but well worth it. Just think how much money you'll save on rubber bands !

Heh, I just ordered both.

I was reading a review that was saying Stockholder was a bit gimmicky, the fact you've got a special wallet for business cards. This is the one time I'm giving a thumbs up to Taiwan, they love business cards here so I'm a bit of a freak because I DON'T have some sort of card wallet.

Go figure.