There are a lot of "piece by piece" card restorations out there. In fact, so many (says RE creator Chris Webb) that when he got around to choosing a name for his newly created version, all the good names were taken. So he simply called it "RE" (like, short for Restored.)
Seems a bit lazy to me, and there are some other parts of his routine/handling that seem lazy to me -- where he took the first solution to come to mind and went with it. So there are parts of this effect handling which I think need to be seriously re-thought by anyone buying this. But that said, I will also say that the RE gimmick is very clever and does make a piece by piece restoration a lot easier and cleaner than most (maybe all..) of the others.
Here's how it looks: a card is selected and torn into four pieces. The spectator examines the torn pieces, and hands them back to the magician, who holds them up at eye level and one by one, begins to restore the separate pieces into a whole card. (It still has the creases from the folds where the tears were made, but it is back together, and shown on both sides.)
The part I left out is some (in my opinion) clumsy and inelegant handling of the pieces and deck between the time the spectator hands you the pieces and the time you get ready to restore them. As you might guess, you need to do some secret stuff with the pieces to get them ready for the restore, and I think there are much better ways to do this than the handling that Webb teaches.
(If you are familiar with Jay Sankey's Paperclipped, it springs to mind as a much cleaner and simpler way to prep the pieces for the restoration.)
I do like this effect and method -- the restoration phase is very easy to do, and looks great. But I recommend this one only to experienced magicians who enjoy working out their own handlings of things, because the visual impact of RE truly deserves a better set-up and get-ready than the handling that Webb teaches.
This one has a gimmick for Red Backed Bicycle cards, though you can actually use the gimmick for any poker sized card back. You will need your own matching deck, and (since you need to "customize" your gimmick), you also will need a few other items from your local stationary store.
CONDITION NOTE: new and unused with instructions -- DVD case has been opened for review and photo.
