What Makes Collard 2 Worthy of a V2?
By John Archer - Saturday, March 9, 2019
I have to be honest, when I see that a successful magic product has been re-released with ‘version 2’ like most of you, my first thought is that it is a cheap ploy to try and wring a few more sales and magical dollars out of the old version and in some cases that can be true, but not with Collard, I promise.
Let me explain. Collard 2 actually came about through collaboration with the incredibly creative New York magician Levent Cimkentli (known to most simply as Levent). Many years ago, at The South Tyneside International Magic Festival Levent and I were booked to perform. As professionals often do, we shared a few products with each other, I gave Levent an original version of Collard and he shared several of his amazing DVDs (I think I got a much better part of the deal.) Levent told me he had never performed any mentalism before but I made him promise he would at least look at it.
Skip forward a few years and Levent and I are talking online and he tells me that he has been playing with Collard. Anyone who knows Levent will know that when he starts looking at an effect he is meticulous with both the history and all the available methods. As we talked over a period of months he told me about prototypes he had made with his 3D printer, he told me about tips and wrinkles he had discovered and variations by Ron Wilson among others.
We bounced ideas back and forth for months talking about every aspect of the effect and performance until version 2 seemed fully formed. Of course, we never referred to it as Collard 2, it was only ever for our own use really.
The decision to finally release Collard 2 to you, the wonderful magical fraternity was simple enough:
I have always believed that it is right to share my knowledge with others, after all, I have only got where I am because magicians before me shared their knowledge with me. I often bore people with the old Chinese proverb “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”.
I have had lots of people asking me where they could get the original Collard which unfortunately has been out of stock for many years and I had no reason to believe there were any plans to do another run.
It was a no-brainer to release the new version, and Andi and Josh at Vanishing Inc. convinced me that the magical community would love the improvements, which include.
-Easier to load tag
-More versatile prop (Not limited to just a dog tag)
-Quicker set up – reset
-Cleaner handling
-Easier handling
-A better-looking reveal
So, in a nutshell, that is why Collard 2 has hit the shelves. To be honest we have improved it so much we should call it Collard version 6.3.
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