Well the first night of Chanukah was yesterday so I got some presents including the Sylvester 98 video and the David stone videotapes. I thought I would give a quick little review of each.


Sylvester 98
Well this video is almost entirely about Sylvester the Jester's amazing move the Sylvester pitch also called the inertia pitch.

It is a great move that is applicable to coins of any size, decks of cards, eggplants whatever you can think of pretty much. The move allows you to produce whatever object over and over even after it appears to have been placed in your pocket. You can also use it to invisibly switch one object for another.
Included on the tape in adition to Sylvesters explanation of the sleight is some really nice routines including a coins across and a coin through solid matter effect. The sleight will take some practice to get proficient at but what good sleight doesn't.
Sylvester goes into the psychology behind the move, has some nice diagrams and the video includes many different angles to aid in your learning of the move.

My only real problems with the tape are
1. His comic sound machine gets annoying after a while
2. The audio isn't very loud(could just be my TV)
3. Its not a DVD (gotta hate rewinding)

If you want to learn to make objects appear continuously or want to be able to have yet another great way to perform an invisible switch then this is the video for you.
check it out at http://www.hottrix.com/





David Stone Les bases de la magie des pieces
I have only watched the first tape from this two tape series. I will not go into extreme detail on each trick taught as that is available over at Dan's site http://www.coinvanish.com/compare.html
This video is voiced over in english (David Stone is French). The voice over is good and keeps up with the actions that David is performing. At times the way certain things are said is a bit weird but this does not detract from the video in my opinion, its actually kind of funny at times.
I like most of the effects on this tape but I don't know how many of the effects I am going to perform yet as some of them require you to be wearing a jacket and I usually don't.
The video consists of Stone doing a trick, teaching the sleights necessary to do the trick and then teaching the patter and how to apply the sleights to do the routine.
A few times he references certain subtleties or moves before teaching them, this can be a bit confusing but if you wait long enough he teaches everything he talks about eventually.

My issues with the tapes
1. Not DVD
2. Jacket required for many of the tricks
3. References certain sleights before teaching them.
4. Goes very quickly on some of the basics. I had not problem as I have previous experience with coin work but for those who don't you might also need to buy bobo or Ammar to get all the moves down.

The Stone tapes are available at pretty much any online magic store for those who are interested.

I forgot to add that if you have the "On The Spot" videos Gregory Wilson references the sylvester pitch but doesn't really teach it well, he doesn't seem to have a very good grasp on it(guess he didn't practice it enough).

I also found that sylvester sells it through his website (didn't know he had one) at http://www.sylvesterthejester.com

The David Stone videos are the best coin videos that I have ever seen, bar none.

My issues with many tapes is that they don't do that.

I guess it is both a positive and negative dchung, if they don't then chances are the effects are too simple to be of use and if they do then the viewer may become confused.

The point of the Stone tapes, as I see it, is not to teach a bunch of random tricks, but to introduce a viewer systematically to coin magic. So he teaches the classic palm, for instance, then teaches a routine featuring the classic palm to show how it could be used.

I rate the tapes with Bobo's as an excellent source for the beginner (and everyone else).

David Stone did a lecture at out local Magic shop in long Island NY a few weeksd ago.
Un fortunatley I missed it , BUT, a few days
later he came buy out local 'magicians'
hang out (MacDonalds) on Saturday morning with Bob Elliot.David was so happy to meet some of us that he performed almost his entire lecture for our small group.
He was extremely pleasant.
i realize this has nothing to do with the topic but I just wanted to tell you about 'a really nice young man' who loves coin magic.

The Stone tapes were my intorduction to Coin Magic. I am currently working with them. Great routines and great instruction! I recommend them. For what it's worth.

The Stone tapes are the best coin material I've ever seen. Very practical for the real world. No lapping or table work.

David Stone is such a nice guy and his lectures are hillarious. I love his style towards coin magic and magic in general. He does use his jacket a lot, but that's because he has adapted his magic to his surroundings as have pretty much every other magician in the world. I can't reccomend his tapes enough.

I have seen this on DVD now but only the first one! what gives?! I WANT MY * I WANT MY * I WANT MY DVD!

DVD David Stone 2 is schedule to be released on the second or third week of July 2004. Check out the special features of this DVD, as there's a few pretty cool stuff on it

PS : Thank you guys for the good review ! It's nice to read it from time to time !!!

David Stone' Coin magic is extremely smooth. Highly recommended

As some of the others, I began coin magic with Stone #1, and I still find it wonderful!
Jonathan.