Ebay tricks / cheap gimmicks

[Unownmagician1990]

Hello all i hope everyone is well.

I've been wanting to ask this question for a while as I've not really seen people talk about it (I've looked for posts but not found any)

I have slowly been learning card tricks and it is going well so far, the books i have brought have a lot of information and the advice from this community on which tricks to look for and what may work for me has helped a lot.

Like most beginners i have gone through ebay for the books, but i have noticed hundreds of tricks / gimmicks whether it's cards or the linking rings on there, now a lot of said tricks look very cheaply made and don't look like they would work, but i have personally focused on looking for card tricks as that is what i feel comfortable with at the moment.

I have actually brought a couple of said tricks and yes one in particular is made on cheap card, but the effect itself works and when I've performed it it has gone over extremely well.

The tricks i have brought are extremely easy to learn and easy to execute which for me is extremely useful whilst i feel I am still at beginner stages of magic.

I wanted to know what your thoughts and opinions are on this subject as I know not a lot of people are a fan of this sort of thing.

I can mention the tricks if it is useful for anyone but i wanted to know your thoughts and opinions about first.

 

[RealityOne]

It is difficult to generalize about EBay. There are some sellers that sell quality used props and books and there are some that sell cheaply manufactured junk. Even among magic websites, there are a lot of cheap junk. Mostly, you get what you pay for. That said, your observation that cheap junk can still amaze is accurate. That said, I would be wary of buying knockoffs if marketed products. Again, you get what you pay for.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Personally I've always been cautious when it comes to eBay. As a company they do not care at all about piracy or counterfeits, so it's always a gamble as to whether you're getting a genuine product or just someone ripping someone else off.

As a general rule of thumb, if something is drastically cheaper on eBay, you're probably looking at piracy or counterfeit goods and that's not something I would personally feel right supporting.

 

[Unownmagician1990]

I have always tried to be careful with what i buy, i did get caught out by a seller which also has it's own website (which I won't mention unless it's needed) but i will only be buying playing cards from them as they are genuine cards and not all that expensive.

I would start looking for tricks like stiff rope and Chinese linking rings as those effects always seem to amaze me.

After the mess ups I've had in the past i always do research as to who created the trick, what the website is like or what the reviews are, yes like a lot of people i would like to pay as little as possible but I know some tricks are worth paying out decent money for.