Product description : Bored of benders which cost hundreds of dollars ? Benz, cleverly disguised as a car key, will allow you to bend not only coins but also keys, knife, nails and so on (without any effort, well, a little bit)
Price and where to buy it : This is sold at $34.95 and you can find it in nearly every Murphy's magic « partner » shop !
What you get : You get a very nice little box with the gimmick inside some foam and a link to download the video instructions. Those are very well shot and you learn what you need to learn, very concise, just how I like them !
The pros and the cons : Here is the core of my review, let's begin with the cons, as I will usually be doing, I prefer to keep the good things for the end.
THE CONS :
As you can spot on the trailer, the key is quite thick and quite heavy too. This is not a problem because it will be on your keychain but I thought it would be a little bit lighter.
Be careful of the size of the coin you want to bend. Small coins won't be able to be bent with Benz due to the way the gimmick is made. This is not a problem since the bending coin, if it's too small, won't be very effective on your audience.
This is not the kind of bender which allows you to bend the coin right under the spectator's nose. However, I'm working on a routine to bring Benz into play and to bend the spectator's signed coin in front of them (without them noticing it, of course). Will let you know more about that when the routine will be structured.
THE PROS :
Wow, this is cheap. While Benz is priced at $35, you will have to pay at least 3 to 4 times this price to get another bender. I know you won't get the same use out of it but it's still very fairly priced.
The gimmick is very very well made and should last a long time. You feel the quality and how robust it is. This is a very important data you want to be sure about when you're buying a bender and Benz does the job very well. I think the gimmick is unbreakable (unless you got with a hammer but still, I'm not sure if it will hurt it)
The fact it's disguised as a key allows you to keep it on your keychain and have it with you every time you go out. You can prepare bent coins on the fly but, as I said earlier, I'm sure there is a way to use Benz with a signed coin.
The video instruction you get is very well shot as every Murphy's product, it's clear and learn quite a few switches which is very cool.
As bizarre as it seems, I don't find Benz to leave marks on the coin.. Maybe it's me or the coins I'm using but I can't really spot any marks on the coin. (there is a part in the video where they teach you how to reduce marks but I didn't even use this tip and still, it doesn't leave marks!)
The way Benz is constructed allows you to bend not only coins but knifes, nails so you're not limited in your performance, you can decide to go with nearly everything you want. (The thickness of the object you want to bend can't be bigger than 3mm, which is enough)
Overall rating : I wasn't a big fan of Sean's product but this is very good and for the price, it deserves, I think, to be left on your keychain so that you're ready to go anytime, anywhere ! 3,5/4 hearts for me.
As for the difficulty level, if you want to switch the coin, there are various ways taught in the video and it's not hard at all. If you want to bend the spectator's coin right under their nose, it will require a little bit more misdirection but still, it's doable by everyone, 2/5 stars.
Similar products : Coinvexed 3, Quantum Bender and the Superman Bender are 3 solid products but quite expensive compared to Benz. it's up to you but you now know that Benz is very good ;)
Thanks to Murphys Magic for sending me this product !