Hi all, greetings from a Hong Kong magician (don't worry, I am part of the ethical group.. ).

Actually this has been independently came up with by me and a couple of friends some years ago....but till now, we have yet to set it off.

To refresh the memory of you guys, those days were the time when Emily Fox and her brother shocked the world on the internet with their cool cup stacking videos.

As part of a natural thinking process being a magician, we all thought it might be cool to start off with a routine that uses cup stacking cups and balls/timers/balls of rolled gloves,

then as the ultimate load/kicker, you lift the final cup to reveal another, yet another....and in 5 seconds you made an array of cups that appeared from nowhere.

This of course might require some custom machinery....but as far as plastic is concerned, this would not be particularly difficult. We might be able to have a stack of 5 or even 10 cups under the disguise of one.

OR we can just hide the extra protruding bit of the cups with our fingers as we do the final appearance.

I think it's cool to share the idea, as I think this has much potential, yet I have never really found the time to plan or design the actual routine.

And I am guessing that some others with interest to cups might have thought of the same idea already.

So, any ideas? Liked it or hated it?

Mickey,
Although not sold as "Stacking Cups" and they probably wouldn't survive very long if you used them as such, I think Bill Palmer has a set of metal nesting cups in his Museum. I think they "multiplied" into at least 9 or more cups as a finale.

The problem with most stackers is the lack of "headroom" to hide balls between the cups. That doesn't mean a routine can't be worked out. It could be a fun experiment. I think I've seen "Speed Stack" cups in our local Target stores here in the States.

I found them! Check out the "Unusual Cups" section of the Cups and Balls Museum. (Link at left) There are several sets about 2/3 of the way down the page.

Von Dokkum has nesting cups for sale, pretty much the same thing in reverse. Start with a chop type thing and move on the the stacking part.

I had a chance to play with them a bit. They nest easier than they un-nest, making a "flash" appearance pretty hard as the inner cup slowly pistons out of the outer cup. But if Auke can make cups this good, it shouldn't take much to loosen up his tolerances a bit (maybe with a vent hole in the top?) to allow a quicker release.

It might be just as impressive if we don't try so hard to be "magical" and simply use a set of Speed Stack cups from the outset. Incorporating loading and unloading under the stackers as they're manipulated in their own way would be pretty impressive.

I've seen a guy whose most impressive part of his cups and balls routine was how fast he would stack and unstack his cups. It wasn't part of the routine, he just conscientiously did it really really fast. When he did, it didn't even wobble the balls that were sitting on top. This was done during the standard "Penetration" sequence that every one learns first. Oddly enough, I don't remember anything else about his routine but that.

Even more important than that, did you remember his name?

At the Cupcon, wouldn't it be fun to see someone do that race stacking that kids do with a big stack of engraved Sherwoods?