Triage is a very visual torn and restored card. I’m sure you’ll be intrigued by the trailer, Shin Lim always have very nice trailers (can you feel a “but” coming?) BUT (I did give you a heads up that a “but” was coming)…….. read on to find out more.
Take a look at this pic and make a guess what is the correlation?
Don’t know? AIR, both have air inside…. lots of it. I always remember this joke – I always thought air was free until I bought a bag of potato chips J. Well, I think the air inside the potato chips is to protect the chips from being crushed, plus it does make it look better and more value for money. In the case of Triage, the purpose is just to make it look more expensive and grand. The box that Triage comes in is way too big for what is inside. While I can’t tell you what’s inside, the size are just cut playing cards with a few small and flat objects. This could have easily been packed in a zip lock bag but of course a zip lock doesn’t look as good as a box with a magnetic lock. I asked my wife to guess what’s inside; she says it could be a pendant. See? The box does elevate the value of the item in it. When I showed her the contents, it was a look of surprise, same reaction as mine. Anyway, what I am trying to get the point across is, selling magic is not exactly like retailing (IMO). You don’t package it in a way to attract buyers; people will be disappointed when they see what’s in it. In the earlier days, tricks are sold in envelopes! Ok, enough of my ranting.
I kinda like this effect (performance only), it looks visual and magical. Imagine a card torn into 4 pieces gets restored by a wave of the hand. It really looks like magic. There are a few routines that come with a streaming/ downloadable video). One of the basic restorations is by tossing the torn cards onto the table where it instantly restores. I don’t like this routine as it may just give away the method.
In the basic routine, Shin Lim teaches you to take the card and put it into the pocket; he does have an “excuse” for that with a patter to cover it. However, I don’t think spectators are that gullible, they will be burning your hands. If you put it into your pockets, they will surely suspect there is something fishy happening there. There is a also a bonus routine showing how you can instantly change a card into 4 pieces of torn card. This requires a gimmick not related to Triage. Shin Lim doesn’t teach you how to construct it and even mentions that you can find this online and he refused to tell you where to look for it, so I don’t understand why it was included as a bonus.
Shim Lim does a good job in teaching how to go about doing everything. However, there is some difference on the video performance by Shin Lim and Danny Weiser. In Shin Lim’s performance, the restored card looks a lot better than Weiser’s. Perhaps the difference is due to the construction of the gimmick.
The construction of the gimmick will take some time and I seriously think that the gimmick will not last for a long time. Certain part will definitely wear out or weaken over time, you probably have to make new ones pretty soon if you use this often.
Having said all of the above, I think this is too much of a hassle to prepare for a TNR card. There are many in the market that is pretty strong. The closest to Triage is probably Tenyo’s Card Surgery. I don’t really recommend getting this, it looks good on video, but like I said before, it’s too much of a hassle.
Rating
5/10
Contributed by Bernard Sim
