Basil Horwitz - Miracle Card to Wallet
PDF
The World's Most Fantastic Card-In-Wallet
All the action takes place in the spectator's pocket - not yours!
Martin Breeze writes about Horwitz Wallet:
I have been trying for a long time to find another maker. No one seemed able to get it right until Tony Curtis came up with just the job and made for me in Thailand.. I have a quantity of the wallets but I am just finishing off a complete rewrite and re-design of the instruction booklet and packaging and I hope to have the artwork from my designer ready for printing during the coming week.
The price of the wallet and instructions is £45 plus whatever it costs for post and packing. Any of the rip-off merchants many of whom are receiving publicity in this newsletter had better be warned that if they attempt to copy the wallet they will be in trouble as the wallet is the subject of a patent application in the US and the UK. Rip it off at your peril. Take the instructions and you will be in breach of copyright. So beware. This protection has cost more than I would like to say and rip-offs will be the subject of legal action!
For those who don't know; the Horwitz Wallet enables the performer to perform a number of effects including the miracle card in wallet effect. What makes this wallet so different that all the changes and the tricky business all takes place when the SPECTATOR put the wallet in his own pocket. Everything is done openly and there is no palming involved. The wallet has inspired a number of effects many of which are in the book of instructions. There is a brilliant Just Chance with Bank Notes and Envelopes which are burnt. One of the best effects with the wallet baffled everyone when Basil first demonstrated it. A card is selected and signed and placed in the wallet and then put in a spectator's pocket. the spectator is then blindfolded The spectator is asked to hold his arm or hand over the pocket containing the wallet. The performer openly pickpockets the spectator and removes the signed card from the wallet and put the wallet back in the spectator's pocket.
The crunch is that the spectator has no idea how he has been pickpocketed until the performer shows that he now has the signed card and the spectator discovers to his amazement that the wallet in his pocket is completely empty. Be warned that this great effect requires two Horwitz Wallets.
Back in 1982 Basil Horwitz gave a special seminar on the wallet here at the IBM Convention which was held at my new home town of Brighton. The Seminar was unusual in that all participants had to be the owners of one of these wallets. At least fifty people turned up for what might well be described as the most exciting event of that IBM Convention.
"The perfect wallet for real magic, beautifully made, with an excellent collection of routines too. I loved it!"
Beautifully made in black leather, yet innocuous enough so as not to draw attention to itself, the wallet instantly feels "just right" (in fact it's very tempting to start using it straight away - but don't!).
The 20 page A5 instruction book includes interesting background information, together with five powerful routines to get you started: Signed Card in Wallet, Just Chance Routine, Mind Control, Mental Hypnotic Pickpocketing (requires two wallets, or one Horwitz and one mock-up) and Do as I Do Gamble.
But the wallet's really more than just "five routines" - it's a brilliantly simple and very versatile prop, that you'll be just as happy to use (very) close-up or on stage, for magic or 'mental' presentations. And it's one with which you can perform real miracles...
-Duncan Trillo, MagicWeek.co.uk, October 2005