Platinum Online Products 1320LBS Double Sided Kit — Worth the $53?

First thing I noticed when this arrived — the case. It's not a pelican case, don't get excited. It's more like a structured zippered pouch, the kind you'd use to store cables or a travel toiletry kit. But it's solid enough to keep everything together, and the magnet actually has a designated spot inside so it's not just rattling around destroying everything it touches.

Which, if you've ever opened a bag to find your car keys inexplicably stuck to your magnet, you understand why that matters.

The magnet itself is double sided, which I like for anything with current or any spot where you're dragging along the bottom at an angle. I took this out to a spot on a canal near me — kind of a boring stretch honestly, more shopping carts than history — and the pull felt real. Not comically overpowered the way some kits claim, but I got a bike frame off the bottom in one pull, which is about as practical a test as I can give you. That thing had been down there long enough that the tires had basically dissolved. So.

The rope is fine. I've seen better, I've seen worse. It's not the scratchy garbage that comes with the cheapest kits, but if you're the kind of person who already has a preferred rope setup, you might swap it out eventually. The knot-ready end felt secure when I tested it, and I didn't have any slippage during that canal session, so I'm not going to complain.

What I would complain about — slightly — is the gloves situation. There aren't any.

A lot of kits at this price are starting to throw in a pair of cheap gloves, and this one doesn't. That's not a dealbreaker, gloves are cheap and I already have three pairs from various kits, but if you're buying this as a first real kit or as a gift for someone who's new to this, just know you'll want to pick up gloves separately. Cold metal rope on cold wet hands is not a fun way to spend a Saturday.

I do think the case is genuinely the thing that makes this kit worth considering over other options in the same price range. I started keeping mine in the car after I got it — rope coiled up in there, magnet clipped in, ready to go. There's a spot near my office I keep meaning to check on lunch breaks and I actually did it twice last month just because the gear was already organized and it took zero effort to grab. That's a small thing that actually changes behavior, you know?

Like, the best gear is the gear you actually take with you.

For someone upgrading from a bare-bones starter setup, this makes a lot of sense. You're getting a real double sided magnet, decent rope, and — crucially — somewhere to put it all. The pull force numbers are probably optimistic in the way all these magnets are a little optimistic, but the performance in the field was solid. I found a corroded padlock, a section of chain that I genuinely couldn't identify, and the previously mentioned bicycle that had apparently been committed to the canal sometime around the Obama administration.