Magic Makers Secret Chest of Magic Kit

I gave this to a family as a gift on Christmas and we actually got to take a look at it today. We messed around with the haunted key and it was actually pretty cool. My only drawback is that most of it is just the items and then 90% of the guides are through QR codes and videos online, which is perfectly fine, just surprising. Any written directions or guides were very easy to follow and fun to do.Otherwise this was a cool gift, hoping to see what my friends can do with card and coin tricks as a result.

My 13 year old grandson loved it!

--->NOTE: This one gets 4 stars from me given the sheer magnitude of content with some components that have excellent instruction; HOWEVER, PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ THE FULL REVIEW BEFORE YOU PURCHASE. For the right person this is a 4 star product; for the wrong person it may drop to 2 stars. It's a very long review, but there are a lot of components to this project!<----PROSExcellent, high-quality, basic teaching in card magic, cups and balls, sponge balls, and coin magic--these are the core building blocks of this projectHOURS of instruction by solid teachersPacked with value--if purchased separately this would cost twice as much as the MSRPHigh quality cups and balls setCONSThis is more of a throw-together project; it was not put together in a focused way to teach magicNot a kit for younger teens/elementary school children; Instruction is on the more serious side, geared towards older teens and adults more seriously interested in magic.Videos are generally old, SD or only near HD quality--this does not affect instruction but means they do not play well on a large screen, HD TVOnline instruction requires use of multiple links, it would have been better to create a single sign in for all the magic instruction related to this projectMissing Props: magic wand, palming coins, large coin, thumb tip, a pack of regular cardsCertain items are subpar--Deland's Automatic DeckFor tricks that require gaffs, you are not shown how to ditch the gaff at the end of the trickSUMMARY:The Magic Makers Secret Chest of Magic Kit has a lot of magic within. For what is there, it is almost certainly worth the price tag and would be a good starting point in magic for someone in their late teens to adult, but is probably not a go-to kit for younger children. The kit has a lot going for it, but has a bit of a thrown-together vibe about it. Magic Makers could have done better if they had thought this one out a little more. For one thing, there is no real unifying theme and for another, there are a few items that are missing from the kit that should have been included.That said, if you purchased all these items from Magic Makers separately, you'd pay at least double what you pay for this kit. (On the other hand, if you were purchasing magic, you may not have wanted all the items included here.)UNPACKINGThe kit comes in an attractive enough packaging. Inside you will find all the components below. It was kind of exciting to open the box and explore what was inside. As to the value here, if you were to purchase each item separately from Magic Makers, you would spend at least $200, so Magic Makers is offering an awful lot of magic at a bargain basement price.There is a lot of stuff inside; however, there is zero organization inside the box. Tricks are basically thrown in and there is no instruction for the beginner as to where to start. This would contrast with other magic kits where items are packed in plastic inserts and are organized when you open them.ONLINE INSTRUCTION:The same can be said for the online instruction. When you click on the QR code on the inside of the box you only are referred to instruction for the Cartoon Deck, sponge balls, cups and balls, and the Deland's Automatic Deck. For the online instruction for the other tricks, you will need to follow a separate link. You can create an account with Magic Makers' Master Magic site or app, but only some of the trick instructions will save to your favorites. The rest require separate link access. It would have been far better to make a single log in for all the tricks in this project.Most instructional videos are broken down into components. However, the card magic instructions are only broken up by DVD. Individual tricks are listed below the video, but are not bookmarked or even time stamped. So you basically have over 1 1/2 hours of straight video and you will have to find the place yourself by identifying the title names.DVDs are supplied for the Out of This World card trick and the World's End set of tricks. The online instruction for Out of This World only has the basic instruction. The DVD has an extra, one-on-one instruction by Rob Stiff, which is no more comprehensive but the video quality is better and it's a little easier to follow.WHAT'S IN THE BOXAs above, there is a wide variety of magic that can be found in the box. I have given them star ratings, which I will clarify below. As noted above, there is a lot of magic here:CARD MAGIC1) Complete Card Magic, Deluxe Edition (download/streaming)--*****2) Deland's Automatic Deck with online instruction (instruction card/streaming) **3) Cartoon Deck (instruction card/streaming) ***4) Separate 'Out of this World' trick DVD (streaming for some content; more content on the DVD itself) ***5) Magician's Insurance Policy (written instructions) ***COIN MAGIC1) Easy Coin Magic (download/streaming) ***CUPS AND BALLSCups and balls set (download/streaming) ****SPONGE BALLSSponge balls (download/streaming) ****MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC1) World's End (download/streaming) ** a variety of magic tricks, most of which require some arts and crafts/do-it-yourself type gimmick construction2) Haunted Key ** (instruction card/streaming)3) Secret Box ** (streaming)4) Dragon Fly Rings *** (streaming)5) Small close-up pad *** small and not well padded, but a good starter and fit in the kitCARD MAGICComplete Card Magic *****The absolute highlight of this group of tricks is really Gerry Griffen's Complete Card Magic. Griffen takes you from sleightless card magic for beginners and brings you up to advanced intermediate magic.There is a lot of bang for the buck here. Griffen is just a great teacher. His pacing is good and his instructions are crystal clear. Realize, though, that this was originally DVD footage that was probably shot in the mid to late 90s (or, for all I know, it may have been first released on VHS, in the late 80s). The video quality is SD quality only (so don't project this on your HD TV) and Griffen is dressed in a tux with a bow tie (think Harry Blackstone, Jr.). There is nothing specifically wrong with this, but the anachronistic 'magician of old' probably lacks kid appeal. This is not David Blaine or a hip Shin Lim presenting here.That said, this is a HUGE project of over 11 hours card magic! Griffen goes from sleightless procedural and self-working tricks to effects that require some facility with the deck. We are talking around 120 card tricks with a regular deck of cards and 60 or so sleights and flourishes that are taught in the last two DVDs. I have no idea why I hadn't heard of this before because it is absolutely what you would be looking for if you seriously want to get started in card magic.All the classics are here, albeit some of their names may be changed. For example, Griffen does an impromptu version of Out of This World by Paul Curry, but calls it 'Use Your Powers for Good.' His version of Dr. Daley's Last Trick is called 'Quicker Than the Eye.' Griffen also falls short on crediting, not mentioning the originators of tricks or sleights. This is a big faux pas in the magic community but crediting, to the degree that it is being done now, was not necessarily the norm back when Griffen put this together and crediting may have been cut in editing, given the sheer size of the project.All that said, if you master even half of what Griffen teaches, you will mystify most lay people with your card magic.Deland's Automatic Deck **Going from pathos to bathos, we reach the Deland's Automatic deck. I remember buying these cards in the five and dime as a kid and they looked suspicious to me back then. Fast forward to 2021 and they still look suspicious. Modern, marked cards hide their markings in a much better way, so if you know where the markings are you will see them in a flash and if not you miss them. Deland's markings take some interpretation.To add insult to injury, the cards are simply terrible. They are manufactured in China and they are horrific to handle. They are stiff, unforgiving, and lack a coated textured surface. There is way too much friction between the cards making them very difficult to manipulate. When compared to the Cartoon Deck that you get in the same box, the Deland's cards are horrific. Magic Makers really needs to have these manufactured by a reputable card company (USPCC or Cartamundi) so that they are remotely usable.That said, this is an okay introduction to marked cards. The basic marking system and other special property of the deck are explained thoroughly in the instruction card and are further elaborated on in the streaming, online videos. Online, there is a rudimentary explanation of how to put the cards in order so that you can also know the next card down using the markings on the cards. However, the instructions do not go far enough to give you enough effects to exploit the properties of the Automatic deck fully, so this is a bit of a throwaway.Cartoon Deck***And speaking of throwaways, next up is the Cartoon Deck. Don't get me wrong, this is a brilliant effect by a brilliant magic creator (Dan Harlan). It is extremely cool to have someone pick a card and then, as you riffle the deck, having the animated cartoon magician pull that exact card out of his hat. But this is not Dan Harlan's routine from Penn & Teller Fool Us and it's a bit of a one trick pony as taught here. The specially illustrated cards cannot be used for any other tricks or examined by your audience. A seasoned magician could bring this deck into play and remove it from sight quickly as they move to the next effect, but how to do this smoothly was not taught and clearing the evidence is not generally in the skill set of a beginning magician. Not sure why this would belong in this magic set.Out of This World***This is definitely a great trick. Not hard to do once you set up the deck, but this is not a set up that a newbie could do in front of an audience. It's also nearly a repeat as Gerry Griffen teaches an impromptu version that requires absolutely no set up and can be done with a fully shuffled deck. It is a great trick and well taught. The reveal at the end is simple, but there are better versions that hide the secret of the trick better.Magician's Insurance Policy**This is a very cute idea and a nice reveal of a card for the end of a card trick, but totally unnecessary. That said, the trick they teach is about the most basic way you could use this possible. I don't think that this adds all that much to the package, so it only gets 2 stars. If they showed you how to use it in a more creative way, it might have garnered another star.COIN MAGIC***This was also shot for DVD footage, but a little more modern. Ben Salinas is dressed in black. He is an excellent teacher but this DVD is basically part of a larger DVD set that is a video version of the classic book Modern Coin Magic, by JB Bobo. Salinas is a good teacher and the camera captures angles generally well. The problem is that, again, it is a magic video that is geared more for the older, serious magic student. It starts off teaching as series of sleights and then gets into 13 short tricks. For children learning magic, teaching a few sleights and then getting into routines that use the sleights might be a better approach.No slight to Salinas--he is a fine teacher, but this component only gets three stars because it is only a piece of a larger project and because there are some missing props here. First, you have to make sure you have 5 regular, identical coins--these really should be 1/2 dollar or dollar sized coins. Quarters are really too small for most comers, even younger children. It would have helped if Magic Makers included 5 palming coins with the kit. Salinas also teaches sleights with an over-sized coin. This is an extra that you can really only buy in magic or novelty store and should have been included. Finally, he does a coin through handkerchief. A handkerchief or bandanna is somewhat easier to come by, but including one or two silk handkerchiefs in the kit might have been a good idea too to keep it all self contained. Additionally, it would have been better to teach fewer sleights and more basic routines.CUPS AND BALLS****Eddie Ray does an excellent job of teaching the cups and balls and does give incrementally difficult routines after teaching a number of sleights. Again, this is old DVD footage in SD and Eddie Ray is a tuxedo wearing magician that kids might have a harder time relating to. The presentation is excellent for adults and covers the basics and some beyond the basic moves for cups and balls. He has a few excellent routines woven in as well.I must mention that Magic Makers threw in their mid-range cups. These are not the dull aluminum cups, they are the shiny chrome cups and that's a nice touch. On the down side, they could have thrown in a chop cup to add a little versatility, but I suppose that was not 100% necessary.Here, however, they should have included a simple magic wand, as this is used in Eddie Ray's teaching.Teaching is excellent. Ray is animated enough, but it is serious in nature and not geared towards younger children.SPONGE BALLSEddie Ray does it again for the sponge balls. His teaching is superb and all basic moves are taught as are routines. The video is older, the teaching is serious, making this a good video for interested teens and adults but likely less interesting for younger children.Here we are missing a thumb tip which is used for some of the vanishes and routines. A Vernet thumb tip is pretty cheap. They could have included two sizes.MISCELLANEOUS MAGICWorld's End (download/streaming) **This is a more modern video with a little more kid appeal. We are in the sorcerer's lair with dark surroundings and strange objects on the magician's desk. The video is not helped at all by the creepy music and an annoying, persistent dripping sound in the background.Instruction is clear enough but is done by pantomime--there is no narration. This is a hodgepodge of 13 tricks that are really not related to each other. Many of the tricks are heavily gimmicked and you will need to supply your own materials and spend some time on arts and crafts to get things up and running.The tricks themselves are okay, but you will have to decide whether the effects are worth the effort to construct some of the gimmicks and they do not specify in most cases how you ditch the gimmicks at the end of the routine.It's not that this series was bad, but I were choosing an additional set of tricks to go along with this set, I think I would have chosen one that either went over magic with everyday objects or street magic. Everyday magic is important for a beginning magician as it is very cool if you can come up with magic on the fly with normal objects that are right in front of you and do a trick. (As in, when your friends say, 'Hey, you're a magician. Show me a trick!') Street magic is very popular now and also allows for spontaneous presentations.Haunted Key ** (instruction card/streaming)The written instructions are brief and not so useful, but Ben Salinas returns and shows you how to effectively use the Haunted Key. For those who are not familiar, a skeleton key placed in your hand moves somewhat creepily and sympathetically apparently via telepathy.I've never been a big fan of this effect, because the movement of the key was never all that convincing to me. At any rate, Ben Salinas does a good job in teaching the effect as best as could be. The key supplied is well made and works well for this purpose.Secret Box **This is one that I just don't get. You can go on Magic Makers and they have a great trailer that makes this one seem like the best thing since sliced bread. Not so mysterious for me though. Without knowing the secret, I figured it out pretty quickly and after examining the props, I was right.This is another illusion that is sort of a one-off piece. Not much here to do. If you were creative you might think of a way to do it that would seem more interesting and magical, but there is very little to the presentation as presented here.A fun little piece but not all that magical.Dragon Fly Rings***This is a nice, nearly pocket-sized version of the magicians' rings. Of course, your audience knows the secret, the key is in hiding the secret in plain sight. The routine is well taught. You only see hands for this one, but given the hands and the voice, it sounds like Ben Salinas.The routine is short (just over a minute) and the explanation is clear but short at just over 8 minutes. I think this is a good, introduction to the magician's rings for a student, but it was quick and to the point and doesn't really give a good grounding in ring magic principles. This differs from Ben Salinas' previous, coin magic instruction. The instruction is focused on learning a routine but does not focus on basic moves/principles, so you would have a harder time making up your own routing. Moreover, the routine was strictly okay but I didn't find it all that interesting or engaging. Part of this is that it was done silently to music. I think it would have been better for them to show the rings with suggested patter. Otherwise it just looks like a series of transformations without any purpose.The small rings are of reasonable quality. A good intro but the magic is not all that engaging.IS THERE BETTER OUT THERE?Some in the magic community might point you to better resources for instruction. For example, Michael Ammar's Easy to Master Card Magic series may be superior to Gerry Griffen's offering here, but Griffen's instruction is simply excellent and the Ammar series alone will cost you around $79 so there is real value here. Ammar's cups and balls series is also excellent, but part one will cost around $30. Ammar's instruction, if you get parts 1 and 2, is more comprehensive, but Eddie Ray does an excellent job in basic cups and balls and you can expand from here. And, by the way, the Ammar series were originally made for VHS, so the instruction is great but you are back in SD video. And Ammar is an excellent teacher, but again this is more serious instruction and probably not for the younger teens and elementary school children.One of the major complaints is that there is little crediting for certain moves and tricks on many of the Magic Makers videos. This is by and in large a valid concern for magicians. However, the crediting in the 90s was more spotty and that's when most of the heavy instructional videos were made. For some of the longer video presentations, some of the crediting may have been cut out for time concerns. Still, it would have been better form to at least mention crediting on the Magic Makers website (where time and space is nearly infinite) if not on the videos themselves.CONCLUSIONSThe major plusses here are excellent and incredibly comprehensive instruction in card magic, good instruction in cups and balls, sponge balls, and basic coin magic. This is the real deal. As good as the instruction is, it is older footage in mostly SD and is serious in tone without a lot of kid appeal. Moreover, the sheer amount of material presented here would likely be sensory overload to an elementary school aged child, unless they were seriously magic obsessed.This makes this project a good starting point for someone who wants basic grounding in magic. The rest of the items are a bit of a mix and may or may not be things you would otherwise want to buy. Although the instruction is good, Magic Makers needs to make access to the instructions via a single link, rather than separate links. This kit may have value for you, but before you buy you will want to price out the items you are interested in.

I got this for my granddaughter who comes over to spend a few days each week. Well, the day before she came over, she got her first cellphone. We went to dinner prior to coming home and she did not put the phone down once. I thought, oh boy, I have lost my sweet girl who loves to engage in a variety of activities.Well, when she opened this kit, I am happy to say that my baby was back!! Her phone was at the foot of the bed and it dinged and beeped multiple times. She never even looked up from the kit. I finally asked, what is that that keeps buzzing. She said, my phone. She said it without even looking up from the kit. She tried almost every item in the kit and spent several minutes with the key and silver cups.There are a lot of activities in the kit. Some come with instructions that allow you to perform the trick immediately and others require that you scan a QR code to view instructions and videos.TL;DR: Lots of fun for the whole family~~~~

Didn’t get everything advertised.

I sent this to my 13 year old grandson because he’s always had an interest in magic tricks and because he’s 13 and not much does interest him. Turns out he loves it! It comes with several typical items in the chest but the real draw is the online tutorials. It’s one thing to have instructions drawn or written out but so much better to actually see it explained. I’m not an aficionado by any means but I’m impressed by the tricks he’s learned. It’s something to hold his attention and gives a feeling of accomplishment I don’t think he gets from the next level of video games. We’ve had several shows put on for us when there’s guests over. Everyone enjoys it and it makes him feel good about himself. Isn’t that what life’s about? Not sure it couldn’t have cost less so more could enjoy this kit, but if you have an aspiring magician, I think they’ll love this.