A review from the Cafe (not mine):
Quote:
Since I'm in the US, I will only go over the English version which was only 10 minutes long.
I'm going to rate it based on a 1-10 scale
1 = bad
10 = awesome
DVD quality: 7
No annoying music. There's only 3 chapters. Demo, Spanish version, English version
Effect: 8
No doubt it's visually stunning but I don't like all the folds.
Handling: 7
The actual change is easy to do but the handling towards the end is very suspicious.
Explanation: 7
Since English isn't their main language, there was enough instructions to get you through the handling. There's no patter at all so you have to be creative on how you plan to present this from beginning to end. Otherwise it's just a "hey let me show you a trick" and back it goes into my pocket.
Resets: 1
Not readily resettable for tables. It doesn't make sense to change it back to the blank paper because the handling is different going from $1 to a blank paper.
Hand out: 2
At the moment, you definitely cannot hand this out. Reason why I rated it a 2 is because I feel that there's a way to hand this out. I'd have to adjust 3 different components of the gimmick so I'm able to finger palm it and let the spectator freely grab the bill from my finger tips.
Reconstruction: 1
Gimmick only came in US currency. It's too bad for the non US magicians out there because there's NO instructions on how to create this from scratch! Euros, canadian, pesos are out of luck unless you can figure out how to to do some reverse engineering by taking the gimmick apart and figure out how to reassemble through trial and error. You can buy the materials at a local arts and craft store. Good luck on that one.
Angle sensitive: 3
Front view only. When you do the change, you have a good chance of flashing the gimmick depending on how you control your wrist. Back lighting is obviously an issue because you're using white paper, so it's best to keep it close to your chest.
Durability: 4
Based on all the folds, I would think this would last about 5-6 months on special occasions since it's probably just going to sit in your wallet majority of the time. If you're a worker, it might go 2-3 months because of the normal wear and tear of the bill and white paper. I use the penguin magic $5 to $1 transpo as a worker and it lasted me about 3-4 months until I had to create a new gimmick due to the holes and it wasn't crisp anymore. Originally it was going to be a 5 to be fair but I rated it a 4 is because there's no instructions on recreating the gimmick!
DVD Pricing: 5
I paid $22.50 off Penguin plus my 10% discount and 2 day shipping which came out to $27. It retails for $30. I'm a fan of money transposition, so it's a price I'm willing to pay for. Pricing is fair even if you're not a fan of bill/money transpos.
Overall: 6
Like I said before, I love bill transpositions and I get excited when a new bill effect comes out. This will definitely be in my wallet. I need some time to figure out if my theory is possible to hand this out. This would solve two things. I don't have to worry about the awkward handling towards the end because I can easily hand it out and I'm able to create multiple gimmicks with different denominations like $1 to $20. I have another bill transposition "Return of the Big Flap by Titanas and Chris Webb" which has a similar transposition. At least with the Big Flap, it has a good method to ditch the gimmick which can be implemented on the Kartis gimmick.
If these solutions pan out, then I'd bump the overall score up to an 8.
"Lasting 2-3 months for a worker" kinda makes me not want to buy it.