Product description : Making a card appears or disappears from an envelope which has been in full view the whole time ? It's now possible with "Manila" from the Spanish creator Julio Montoro.
Price and where to buy it : This is sold at $29.95 and you can find it in every Murphy's magic partner.
What you get : You get a DVD case with inside a DVD which is very well shot but the english voice was very strange, kind of a robotic one. Nothing very bad but it was very strange. You are also supplied with a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, the envelopes provided don't look as close as anything you can see in the trailer. I received blue, pink, green envelopes but not any black or red. A quick mail to the company and they directly sent me a new set which is very nice from them ! For the price, the amount of stuff you received is very good.
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 :
The envelopes provided, as I said, don't look like the ones in the trailer. If you want some, you can send a mail to the company, they are very fast and has a very nice customer service.
The envelope can't be examined, which is not a major con but still, you can do a switch if you want to.
THE PROS :
It's very fast, very visual and quite easy to do.
There are 2 kind of envelope you can make, one for the appearance and one to make a card disappear. You will always have the control over the moment it happends which is very nice.
You can leave the envelope on the table without any fear of anything happening.
The material used is cheap so you can made up like 5 to 10 envelopes with anything you want. That's another plus because, even if on the DVD they only teach you tricks with cards, you could use business cards, bills, everything which fits an envelope. (it has to be a flat object).
The DVD is very well shot and they put quite some routines in it so it gives you enough material to get started and then you can come up with your own routines.
It's quite cheap when you think about it.
Overall rating : Visual, easy to do and easy to make, Manila will be very appreciated by your audience. Unfortunately, I do have other stuff with envelope so I won't be using it but still, it's a great trick ! 3/4 hearts.
As for the difficulty level, nothing really difficult, from the making of the gimmick to the trick by itself, 2/5 stars.
Similar products : You can check the mirage wallet by Mark Mason which is based on a similar idea. If you want an eye popping card to envelope, you can check my Ocular released by Alakazam Magic.