If you are, what type of Linking Pin Props are you using and do you have any experiences performing the linking pins that you would care to share with members of The Magic Café?

I've been playing with Dan Garrett's routine from his Close-up Coinivery DVD. It uses ungimmicked pins.

I do the old "Piff Paff Poof" version from the 1960's, it's short and crisp. I still have a few horse blanket pins that work well, look interesting, and can be seen. An effective bit of magic for a few spectators. Walt

Bob Sheets has a version similar to Garrett's. It is the one I prefer. There is a DVD called Grab Your Pinhead, and it has both Garret and Sheet's versions.

I keep the Andrus linking pins from Hocus Pocus in my purse.

They work great and you can do all the moves with them.

Randi

Slyini pins is a must

I still do stuff from the Andrus book. Still plays well.

BJ

I do both Dreamweaver from The Enchantment and the Slydini routine. I highly recommend both of them. Dreamweaver has some pretty cool extra bits that you can do with that set too.

PM'ed a question to you Randi.

-Ron

I used to perform dream weaver too but I have been neglecting it a lot lately. Its a nice change from crazymans....
The gimmick/s supplied with dreamweaver are great and leave plenty of possibilities.
Think I might dig this back out, I remember storing them in my cup and ball set which I havent touched since I bought it....

Busy weekend.

Just so those that have not done Dreamweaver are not misled or confused, 99% of the routine is/can be done without a gimmick at all. BUT, the gimmick does open up some other, very cool variations and possibilities when used correctly!

I use a modified variation of Dreamweaver mixed with common routines found in Tarbell (Wait, isn't the idea behind Dreamweaver also in Tarbell?).

So Randi, has Andrus ever given you any issues with TSA?

Thanks to this thread I've actually started using dreamweaver again forgot how cool this routine is.

I use the Slydini Pins and have a routine published in 'Magictales'.

Leslie

In the last days I got and learned Bruce Bernsteins`s "Linking Pin Routine".

Very good explained on the DVD, really easy to learn, looks great and it is fun to do.

But I don´t know about the reactions of the spectators.

That is a pretty good routine too. As with any linking pin routine, you have to work on your presentation and rely on your story to sell it. If you really thing about it, linking safety pins may not be all the magical, in the mind of the spectator, because most of them will automatically assume you are taking advantage of a moving bar on the pin. Of course, some of the linking pin routines out there are very clean and very magical, but like any other effect, presentation is everything.

A very good effect to perform table hopping/strolling as it's 'in the hands'/needs no reset, etc.

However, the routine should be kept pretty short and precise.

Another point is try to perform this against a darker background (e.g. your clothing) as in some lighting circumstances, it may not be clear visually, to some spectators, what exactly is happening.

Another vote for Dreamweaver! What a cool combination of others work plus the additional gimmick. You can´t go wrong.

In Apocalypse Vol 1 - 5, p 109 (Apocalypse Vol 1 No 10 Oct 1978)
is The Mystery of the Gold Pins by Slydini, a linking safety pins routine

I have used Pif-Paf-Poof since I was a kid and it still kills with all the possible variations. I have developed a reversal which gives me a link as well as the standard unlink that is just as quick. It is also the version that lets you move a pin in a handkerchief or a pair of jeans or other heavy fabric (Dockers work fine but no dress clothes). Later, I ring in what I think is the Jerry Andrus version, but I am not sure that it is identical. I got mine right from the guy who supplied all the wholesalers and many retail shops with many props and almost all the speciaty coins before he passed on and all the new kids popped up. He is a little known name to magicians, George Wondra. He made my pins around 196. I ring in the gaff and do the impossible penetrations ending with a mid-air strike link as a closer. Someties I will even teach a small audience how to do the rudimentary Pif-Paf-Poof just to be able to say later, "and here is what you can do with a few years of practice." Oh, yeah, and I often start out with a challenge by handing a few spectators sets of regular blanket pins. aI ask them to see how fast they can unlink, reclose them separately, and then reverse to re-link the pins again. I demonstrate opening up one pin, unlocking them closing the pin and and showing both closed and separate. Then reopening one to rejoin the two by refastening the pins back together as at the start. I do this at an unhurried pace and most think they can do better. I say go and the first to finish is to shout stop. I am so fast that as quickly as I can say go and stop mine have been unlinked, displayed, and relinked using just the Pif-Paf-Poof method. I also have a Bruce Berinstein (Sorry Bruce for likely murdering the spelling of your last name --- you are in good company I just posted a mis-speling of Harry Lorayne's name a Loraine too) linking pin set which has a very different working method. It is nice, but the method always leaves me wondering if or when the gaff will give out, so it sits in the drawer. My old neighbor George also made me a very nice set of matching shrinking pins which he gave me. In the full routine I sometimes throw that in too if the interest level in pins seems to remain high. If I include it it is just before the closer. That's it on pins from me. for now