Latest / The Magic Guys / History of the Magic Kit! #247

Transcript

History of the Magic Kit! #247 · The Magic Guys

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  They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
• 0:09
  Oh, come on. He doesn't want to focus. Do it. It only wants to go on my face.
• 0:15
  Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to episode 247 of the Magic Guys.
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  I'm Josh. I'm B1 and to my left is B2.
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  Hi, I'm Nick K, also known as B2. and was Doug B3, I suppose?
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  Yeah, look, Doug's here. He's just running the magic shop right now, but he would be B3, yeah.
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  And for those listening, what I'm referencing to is I'm not wearing a hat today
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  because it's so hot in Australia right now that I have the ceiling fan on and
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  it's literally going to keep me cool and my camera cool.
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  So this is, you're not going to be able to tell the difference between Nick
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  and I if you're watching in video, except for he's wearing a red shirt and I'm
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  wearing our Trust the Slight T, yeah boy!
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  Which you can obviously get at themagicguyshow.com. Nick, how are you today,
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  my friend? Living the dream, my dude. It is.
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  You're right. It is, my. We just said this in the show. I knew it.
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  You're going to keep singing. Yeah, weird.
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  That's funny. That's funny. Oh, look at our friends in the chat,
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  Nick, who we got here today on this magical Tuesday, Monday.
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  Oh, we have our friend Thomas Conger in the chat. Good to see you,
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  bud. And thank you for reaching out to me over the weekend. We have Scotty Link.
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  We have Mike. We have Herbert.
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  Good to see you, buddy. We have the Mystery Buck Studio.
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  Tim Askin, Adrian Moore.
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  Guys, thank you all for being here. It's going to be an interesting chat.
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  Again, we do this live. You can put your questions and so forth in there.
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  Although today is going to be an interesting one because we'll be talking about history.
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  So it's good to see you all here. And for the folks that are in the chat,
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  we've sort of debated whether or not we address the awful elephant that's been
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  lurking around the Bondi beaches.
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  And we just wanted to say that a lot of you guys who listen to the podcast reached
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  out to both Josh and myself to make sure we were okay with the awfulness that
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  unfolded there. And we are okay.
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  Our friends are okay down there as well. But there's a majority of folks who
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  aren't okay due to the awful, awful attack that actually unfolded.
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  So firstly, thank you for being our friends and for reaching out to us. We appreciate that.
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  And for everyone who involved who is not okay, our thoughts and prayers will
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  go out to you. And Josh, you want to extend on that?
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  Yeah, no, thank you for reaching out. It's a scary thing to see,
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  and it's scary for us to see it in our hometown.
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  I immediately reached out to our friend of the show, Michael Webb,
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  Magic Mike, because he lives in Bondi.
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  And no kidding, he had shared a photo of him underneath the restaurant tables
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  with everyone there, and it's horrible.
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  But everyone in our circles that we know of are fine.
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  But yeah, thoughts and prayers to everyone that's going through it,
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  because it's still streets are closed off. Anyway, we're not here to...
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  Be a new show but we do want to address it because it is
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  it is a real thing it is really happening but we
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  have a wonderful show in store for you guys everyone is well on
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  our end we just want to assure you that but yeah thank you so much for reaching
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  out yeah thanks thank you you brought up magic kits the other week and we were
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  like oh that's interesting i wonder how long they've been around for right that's
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  a good question yeah exactly because what happened folks is like Christmas is upon us.
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  And I wonder how many kids are going to be getting their very first magic kit
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  for Christmas. This Christmas you mean?
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  That's what I mean. And so I was like, man, I wonder how long magic kits have been around for.
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  I wonder how many types they are. I wonder how many people got it and actually
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  started their careers because of them getting this.
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  So, you know their very first kit on christmas day and there's an abundance
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  of world-class famous magicians who,
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  we're set on this magical path because of the magic kits. And so I ended up
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  going down a rabbit hole and looking into the entire history of the magic kit
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  and how it became so popular as a gift for Christmas.
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  I don't have the sound. I don't have the sound effect. So that's what we're working with. Okay.
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  But yeah, I, I, I look back to, I was 10 when I got my first,
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  I've been given two magic kits in my life that, that played a big part in my career.
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  The first one was when I was 10 and that was, I wish I had the DVD because I
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  feel like it was Daryl or like someone well-known.
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  Oh, proper. Teaching like, I remember learning a, it was like a matrix routine,
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  but with dice because dice, you could just, you could easily just pinch into
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  your palm, like to, to make them move across the table.
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  And that that's like my one memory and a
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  card trick that i remember learning and then the next pivotal one believe
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  it or not i hate to say this but it was the chris angel magic
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  kit when i was like 18 or
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  19 that was the first time i got exposed to like actual like street magic like
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  we're talking thread we're talking thumb tips even i didn't even i wasn't properly
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  aware of it back then yeah and i remember learning haunted deck and my parents
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  freaking out and i was like oh oh, okay, there's something here.
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  So Criss Angel actually did help.
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  Through my magic career which is surprising what about you nick buddy no i i
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  didn't get into magic till i was 23 and i only just clicked over 41 so it was
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  a it was a long time ago but yeah my,
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  my affinity with magic was a totally different experience although i wish i
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  like i wish i wish i had the opportunity to do that it just wasn't very prominent
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  in my culture and i guess in my,
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  i don't know poorer class that i grew up in perhaps i'm not sure but i mean
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  i'm here now I'm pretty thankful for it.
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  So I think in Australia, we just generally weren't exposed to a lot of magic, right?
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  Like we didn't get Copperfield specials on TV or even David Blaine wasn't on like free to air TV.
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  So I don't, it's, I think it's just, we were late to actually get exposed to
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  it properly. I think. Yeah.
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  I mean, even Nick here says that he got his first kit when he was 29 and he's 30 now.
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  So my half-fire has come. That might have been a Doug Conn magic kit that morning.
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  That might have been so recent.
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  So here's the thing. If you ask almost any magician how they got started,
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  there's a really good chance that the story begins with Christmas.
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  And for many of us, magic didn't start in a theater or a magic shop or even
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  a book. It started under the Christmas tree.
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  It was a brightly colored box with a wand and a set of cups and balls made of
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  crappy plastic and maybe a deck of cards that felt like...
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  Like playing with wood chips. It was awful, right?
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  But at that moment, opening a magic kit on Christmas morning has quietly become
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  one of the most important entry points for a young magician to enter the art of magic.
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  And here's what most folks don't actually realize about that.
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  You see, magic kits, they weren't always for kids.
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  They originally were, and I'll get into that, right? And they definitely weren't always magic gifts.
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  So to understand how magic gifts, they became a holiday tradition.
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  We need to go way back before the box and before mass production, before stores.
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  And we got to go back to when like magic was still considered kind of dangerous,
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  mysterious, and very adult.
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  So we're going to go all the way back to the 1800s, right?
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  Let me say it again, the 18th and early 19th century, where magic was not seen as cute and harmless.
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  It belonged to, you know, traveling conjurers and fairgrounds and taverns and royal courts and,
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  you know secret societies that was how it was very
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  much done back in the day magicians guarded their secrets fiercely
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  it was either like through books which were rare and expensive
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  just like today and often encoded language but one of the most important texts
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  was professor hoffman's modern magic which was printed in 1876 and that's a
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  book that many magicians still reference today But even Hoffman wasn't writing for the children.
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  It was written for like the gentlemen and the hobbyists and educated adults
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  who had the leisure and leisure time and the money because those level of books
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  were quite expensive at that point in time.
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  But at that point in history, there was nothing for the beginner.
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  There was no learn in 10 minutes easy. There was no colorful packaging. This was all books.
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  The beginning point of the story, right? Because if you learn magic,
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  you either had to, one, have a mentor, but have the affluence to afford these
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  expensive books, or just watch
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  and reverse engineer these tricks from watching professionals, right?
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  So magic was exclusive by design, but then something massive happened.
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  The industrial revolution. Now, suddenly through the Industrial Revolution,
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  manufacturing became cheaper and printing became faster.
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  And that's when literacy actually increased because it was easier to print books and so forth.
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  And we effectively, through the Industrial Revolution, we ended up creating a middle class.
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  And that's where the children's market was first born. Does that make sense so far?
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  Yeah. So it wasn't until the middle class that, what, people could afford technology.
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  These kind of gifts for each other and yeah look
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  at different kinds of things so because back in the
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  day yeah so back in the day would have been like the affluent and
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  the farmer folk right and then we started having this real ground
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  through the industrial revolution where things were being able to be manufactured and
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  be manufactured cheaply enough for all to afford
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  and that kind of right out so if
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  there were if there were magic kits back then it was literally
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  either like cups and balls made
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  of gold or bloody potatoes
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  and cow poo exactly right now
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  in the very like very yeah and if he's even saying here that
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  some of the guys have physical copies of the things we're talking about back in
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  the 1920s and most of the props made back
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  then actually had were like made of steel and
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  metal and they were engineered to last for a very very long time
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  because children at that point
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  were no longer small adults because kids worked back
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  then there was no like child labor laws and so forth they were all just like.
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  You can lift something go get in a cave and start digging you
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  know so at that point through the industrial revolution
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  kids were now able to become learners and dreamers
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  and future professionals and basically future consumers all
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  right so at this point this is where the toys industry
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  exploded all right because people
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  were able to make small objects that were
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  like very simple mechanics and they were basically
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  in a position where they were positioned to make toys of
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  all facets now i'll talk about sort of the most common toys that
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  were released during that time but let's jump into the first magic kit from
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  that so like you said the first ones they weren't plastic they weren't even
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  colorful but they were fun right most of the apparatus that were included in
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  these original first magic kits were like wooden boxes like a metal apparatus,
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  the instructor, the booklets, they were like crazy dense.
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  And there was very little illustration when they first, when they first started.
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  And they were sold as either like a scientific amusement or like a parlor entertainment.
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  That's basically how that was sold back in the day.
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  Do you think when Magic Kids first hit the shelves, magicians were pissed?
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  A little. A little. History suggests that it was a little bit.
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  But the reason it's not exactly is because when they first came out,
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  they were sold to parents and not kids.
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  So they were a means of the adults entertaining the children.
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  Oh, I like that. Okay. So one of the earliest companies to lean into this was
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  a company called George Newman & Co., which was in London. followed by another
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  company called Martinka & Co., which was based in New York.
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  And these companies had an apparatus collection of not toys,
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  but magical props, which included the cups and balls, linking ring,
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  die box, a change bag, and this
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  book of instructions. That was like their first sort of original kits.
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  And they were often sold as like educational tools to help entertain and educate kids.
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  So the magic market was being...
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  It was more so about teaching the adults to then pass this information to the
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  kids to help them build confidence, teach dexterity, and encourage them with their public speaking.
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  Okay. Yeah, which is important because this is how it then became the way of
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  a Christmas grift, right?
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  So by the late 1800s, Christmas had become fully commercialized by that point, right?
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  Where it was all about buying toys and you
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  know the religious aspect was obviously still there but it was more so
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  like santa's coming we're buying gifts we're promoting economy
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  we're doing what we need to do right and magic had
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  something that the other toys didn't have and that
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  was it had like wonder mystery and transformation and a magic kit wasn't just
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  a toy it was an experience and it allowed a child to be in control it allowed
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  them to surprise their adults i love them to perform and also to command attention
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  because in a Victorian household where children were expected to be quiet and obedient,
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  magic gave them this little temporary power where they were allowed to then
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  express themselves and be loud and entertain all the folks and family that were
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  coming to visit during that time.
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  And by the 1900s, magic sets were being advertised in Christmas catalogs that
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  were displayed in department stores and they were purchased as a gift that keeps on giving.
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  Doug, what's your earliest memory of a magic kit? Was that something you were
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  gifted as a young New Orleans?
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  That would have been in Dothan, Alabama when I was nine years old.
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  We got the Top Hat magic kit.
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  I grabbed one from the back that was like it. Oh, damn.
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  Oh, we're going to get a little expose here. Oh, that's actually quite flash
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  for the listeners. Yeah. Still wrapped in plastic?
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  I assume it's a very modern version, right, Doug? No, this is probably old school,
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  actually. I think it has a DVD with it, but it has like a table that's built into the kit.
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  So it's got a performing surface.
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  What a heck of a magic kit for 50 bucks, this thing.
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  Whoa, that's solid. I also had the one that came with a top hat.
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  I think that was my first one I got. But yeah, it had been eight or nine years old.
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  And I lived in Dothan, Alabama at the time. So it was a pretty small town.
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  And really the only place you could get magic was to go to like the Walmart
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  of the time, you know, the stores that have all the toys.
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  And that's how we got magic tricks.
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  Yeah, well, I wish I still had mine. But I was saying to Nick,
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  I'm pretty sure the one that I had would have had someone famous that I would recognize now.
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  But as a 10-year-old, you just have no idea, right? Like it was probably Daryl
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  as a young kid or Williamson or like someone that I just had.
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  Don't know where it is now. it's gone how are
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  sales at trick supply during christmas doug are they like
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  is it a thing that people are really into during december
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  i've actually sold certainly more than my average for magic kits and the thing
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  that kept me late here was a couple of youngsters i tend you know if someone's
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  got a sincere interest in magic i tend to tend to focus on a little more of
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  a professional prop than,
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  you know, a box of plastic things, but.
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  But yeah yeah we're doing good is there
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  like a litmus test of like they have to kind
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  of reference a few things or show you
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  a few things before you can gauge like oh yeah you're here
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  for this kind of stuff or just singali deck
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  i can't actually i i
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  kind of judge it on the the budget of
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  the shoppers you know like obviously some some
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  people are gonna just want to spend 20 bucks and get as much
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  as they can but if it's a family or
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  you know someone that has a few bucks I'd rather
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  see them get something that they're going to enjoy a lot
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  more than you know a box of things that for the
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  most part they won't be able to figure out yeah right and and what's the that's
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  a good way to put it and what's like the best magic kit in trick supply at the
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  moment is there one that's well I actually put together cons kit which is eight
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  professional items so you get like three bicycle decks.
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  You get a Professor's Nightmare set, a good quality rope. You get some invisible
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  thread and wax, some sponge balls, magic wand, a nice cheap set of cups and balls.
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  But all of these props are versatile.
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  Like you can do a lot with stripper decks, fingali decks. You can do a lot with
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  invisible thread. You can do a lot with magician's rope.
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  So I constructed this kit with the intent of having a flexible set of professional
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  apparatus and then also this kit also comes with video tutorials from yours
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  truly that actually sounds what i need for my gigs this week.
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  I can take that kit and go to work any day of the week as a full professional
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  yeah i'm asking what says show the stocking here's what we promote for like
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  you want to get a stocking stuffer for your uh,
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  For your kids or your friends. Look at this thing for $15. It's got the penny
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  to dime, a stripper deck, the dice, you know, the clairvoyant dice, the magic snapper.
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  There's, I think, a ball and vase in here.
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  This is a good cheap option, you know, if someone's looking to just get something
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  for Christmas on the cheap. You've blown my mind.
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  You've just revolutionized the magic kit and now just made it a magic stocking.
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  For those listening it looks like a legit magic stock stocking you'd buy at
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  walmart or something where it's like full of candy or whatever but this is like
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  the first thing i see is 110 magic tricks with a stripper deck and then all
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  these little gizmos for different vanishes actually it's a las vegas thing it's
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  110 tricks with a stripper there's no deck involved.
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  Dude that is the las vegas magic special that's funny
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  yeah wow and and how much does one of those go for i had to raise the price
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  to 15 bucks because when i was pulling them out for christmas i said 12 that's
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  insane that's only 15 dollars right yeah go to trick supply sacco magic,
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  yeah well that kind of leads to my next point really nicely
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  because by like the early 1900s magic shifted from
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  being something like exclusive from stage performers and
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  something that only like wealthy parlor entertainers could do
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  to something affordable that children could own so for 15 bucks to get a sock
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  like that filled to the brim is absolutely awesome so and the main three reasons
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  why it was actually affordable is because of the industrial manufacturing the
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  department stores and the rise of Christmas as a commercial event.
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  And obviously, the association with the magic of Christmas as well.
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  So it was not only something that
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  you watch now, it was something you can actually wrap and gift to a child.
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  And that's where the birth of the magic kit.
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  Sort of happen as we know it so before this
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  period you would buy a single trick a single booklet maybe a handmade prop right
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  but with the kit you get multiple tricks printed instructions branded packaging
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  and illustrations of magicians on the box and that was the template used still
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  to this day as doug showed a moment ago so with the department stores we had like the harrods,
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  sylfridges macy's and sears and you can see that oh wait so just look at a glance
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  that box you're showing us what are the who are the folks in the back of that
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  box there does it say who they are let's see i know we got jay marshall harry
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  blackstone that is a weird looking harry houdini.
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  Francis marshall's on this box that's interesting who is this fellow servant the roy all right,
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  okay this is my favorite kit to recommend the
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  classic mysteries of master magicians there's so
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  much good stuff in this one wow there's like for twenty dollars again how how
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  is this this price but yeah look at what's in here it's a big box like that
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  is an enormously thick box too like it's probably like you would almost assume
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  there would be like a gaming console and it's so big,
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  so this is one i like to suggest now back in the day the sales folks of these
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  magic kits would perform the tricks live to draw crowds and then sell these
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  sets on the spot and that basically became like the retail performance art back in its day.
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  The what's our time frame here what are you like in
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  the early 70s now or we've just ventured into
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  the early 1900s all right yep so
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  so the earth with the very early kits that were
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  currently in the department stores it was david devon and masculine from the
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  uk and they were the most respected magicians of their time and they lent the
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  legitimacy to the magic kits and so through their influence they were able to
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  elevate the toy to them being a craft and make it more instruction focus and
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  emphasis on presentation.
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  And those sets were inspired by Devan, who aimed to teach proper magic, not just puzzles.
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  And then there was the Thea Magic Company, which if you can find the second
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  hand in good nick, the numbers for these types of kits is phenomenal.
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  So the Thea Magic Company was founded in Los Angeles.
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  They sold professional apparatus. They sold beginner
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  kits and high-end illusions as well but some of
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  their christmas magic kits included scaled down versions
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  of their professional tricks and so
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  it kind of blurred the line between being amateur and professional and many
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  future magicians encountered these as like
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  the real magic through thayer there was also
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  the hamley's magic set which is made in the uk
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  the hamley toy store in london became
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  synonymous with making these just for christmas ultimately
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  because that was when they could get the return on them so it was christmas
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  along with all their magic demonstrations so it was very
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  easy to sell that hamley set which was more
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  than into like the fantasy of magic had very bold packaging and very theatrical
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  artwork as well so for many magicians from the uk listen to this that would
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  be more familiar with what the hamley's magic kit was but that's when the packaging
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  became like fantasy now this is crucial because magic kits didn't just sell the.
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  Because the box featured folks in the tuxedos
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  the top hats the cave of the capes you know
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  glowing hands and floating objects and so forth and that's something
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  that was sold to the kids to show them this is
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  who you could become so it wasn't about learning the trick
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  it was about becoming the magician that was the way it was promoted and sold
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  to the kids so the first celebrity magician branding associated with this as
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  far as all the artworks in the box there was often there wasn't I was trying
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  to see who the real person was, but the thing was, in the early 1900s,
• 23:26
  they were basically fake magicians, like made up folks.
• 23:29
  It was like very exaggerated titles, like the master, the wizard.
• 23:33
  And it wasn't until much later that real magicians started putting their names
• 23:37
  on it because it led them to trust the brand a bit more.
• 23:41
  It also led folks to, for the notion of aspiration. If you saw,
• 23:45
  you know, Chris Angel on there, you could aspire to be like that.
• 23:48
  And it promoted a little more hero worship, if you will. So kids weren't buying
• 23:52
  just the toys, they were buying into this notion of self-development and buying
• 23:56
  into that legacy. They could be like Chris Angel someday.
• 24:00
  Chris Angel actually has a pretty nice magic kit. Yeah. I like how Draco Tear
• 24:05
  is saying, I'm a fake magician. We all are, buddy.
• 24:11
  Now, the secret sauce of these were obviously like the instruction booklets
• 24:16
  that came with these kits.
• 24:18
  You've got the 101 tricks with a stripper in that book.
• 24:21
  These probably weren't too different. They were very thick.
• 24:24
  They were illustrated and very narrative driven. And some of them,
• 24:28
  which I love, actually promoted like how to stand, how to speak and how to act confident.
• 24:35
  So it was actually teaching stagecraft in amongst how to play with all the apparatus
• 24:40
  that they were actually gifted in the kit.
• 24:42
  Some included like full scripts.
• 24:45
  Some had advice on like how to do applause. And lots of them,
• 24:50
  if not all of them, actually had warnings about the secrecy.
• 24:53
  So I still promoted that you still maintain all the rules and be a magician
• 24:59
  and maintain those secrets because it was very heavily promoted that magic is
• 25:04
  not just about the performance and not just the mechanics of how those apparatus work.
• 25:14
  Love that yeah yeah that's important
• 25:17
  yeah it's and it probably should be in more
• 25:20
  more magic kits and more even in like the the dollar stores here there's the
• 25:25
  little boxes of tricks kind of like a tenue style right like a little box one
• 25:29
  little plastic 3d printed thing even that should have some kind of notion of
• 25:34
  okay practice this but don't show your friends how it's done,
• 25:38
  yeah i agree i agree now also during
• 25:41
  this time sadly the first world war had
• 25:45
  happened and not long after magic was seen as
• 25:48
  a notion of escapism for kids so during that
• 25:51
  time families wanted hope children wanted joy and parents
• 25:54
  wanted wholesome entertainment and magic kids offered them
• 25:57
  that they offered imagination control and optimism
• 26:01
  and a child could feel powerful in the world where
• 26:04
  it was basically chaotic now this
• 26:07
  emotional context matters because magic wasn't random it
• 26:10
  was comfort for kids who were actually in
• 26:13
  control of the little something that was surreal and
• 26:16
  supernatural almost for for the majority of them so that
• 26:20
  seeded for a lot of people a lifelong obsession now we spoke about this earlier
• 26:26
  where how many magicians have said i got a magic kit for christmas and that
• 26:31
  changed everything or you know this is the era during this time where like magic
• 26:36
  began at home at christmas with a box.
• 26:40
  Yeah i mean it's still my first the first
• 26:43
  sentence out of my mouth when people ask how you got into
• 26:45
  it it was my birthday but still yeah still
• 26:49
  the old magic kid and so by the 1930s magic survived the great depression a
• 26:55
  world war and massive changes in entertainment now radio was dominant during
• 26:59
  this time but movies were kind of exploding and vaudeville as a result was fading
• 27:04
  And yet magic sets were still everywhere.
• 27:07
  And in this era, magic was truly said to become a Christmas tradition,
• 27:13
  not just the toys, but like as portals to becoming the magicians.
• 27:17
  This era was defined by catalogs. So the catalogs mainly being the JCPenney's,
• 27:24
  the Sears, that were also in like newspaper classifieds and even in comic book
• 27:28
  ads. Doug, can you contest to this?
• 27:31
  The very first trick I purchased was from the back of a comic book.
• 27:36
  Scott Link mentioned the TV magic cards, and that's what I bought.
• 27:40
  It was a stripper deck, and I couldn't get the damn thing to work.
• 27:45
  So it's surprising that I made it past that and stuck with it.
• 27:49
  I had magic kits before I bought my first trick, but I was like,
• 27:54
  I'm leveling up. I'm going to buy this single trick deck.
• 27:58
  And then you had to wait like eight weeks for the damn thing back in the day to get to your house.
• 28:03
  No, it said in the ad, four to six weeks shipping. Boy, they didn't lie.
• 28:08
  Wow. What a process back then.
• 28:12
  So first of all, you had to buy the comic book.
• 28:14
  Then you had to trust the print advertising.
• 28:18
  It wasn't like social media where you could see someone lie to you on video.
• 28:22
  They would lie to you in print. Yeah. In print.
• 28:26
  It was always like, become a magician, amaze your friend, no practice required.
• 28:31
  Like that was the main sort of. Wow. They were still slinging that no practice
• 28:35
  required stuff back then as well.
• 28:37
  Yeah. Yeah. They're still slinging that. Imagine. But like, I feel like print
• 28:41
  could really fool you even more. Like, you know.
• 28:44
  It was the worst, man. Every week, every month you get the flyer in the mail
• 28:49
  from Tannins or Hank. Steven's Magic had a good one.
• 28:54
  But man, yeah, you have line drawings and magic advertisement lies.
• 28:59
  That's what you had to go on.
• 29:01
  Wow. They could just say the wildest stuff. Know what any spectator is thinking
• 29:05
  without them writing anything down or them telling you.
• 29:08
  And it's like, there's something stupid.
• 29:12
  And then you had to vision how if you were lucky
• 29:15
  enough to think it could work then you had to envision the whole skit again
• 29:19
  no video demos you know it's just like what is this supposed to look like yeah
• 29:25
  yeah it's today y'all got it easy we do yeah and we say kids today because between,
• 29:34
  1930s and 1960s the staples of the christmas tree for a young boy was effectively
• 29:40
  either a train set, a chemistry kit.
• 29:43
  Model airplane, or magic kit. And here's why.
• 29:48
  Because they were cheap to manufacture, they felt educational,
• 29:52
  so parents were obviously happy to promote that.
• 29:55
  They encouraged confidence and presentation, and they didn't require batteries
• 30:00
  or supervision to play with them. And so parents loved that.
• 30:06
  No doubt you want a magic kit no good we'll see in three days go in to go to your room.
• 30:14
  Were they giving out magic wands back then yeah yeah
• 30:18
  yeah so there's totally common now
• 30:21
  i did a lot of research as to like the most common ones of the time there
• 30:24
  was the thea studio of magic which was like
• 30:28
  they were just really nice high quality stuff more serious
• 30:31
  for professional learning but their kits weren't always toys that
• 30:34
  were scaled down versions of like really cool illusions they had
• 30:37
  the abbot's one which was more based for beginners
• 30:41
  and they had like a really good reading material like they were more faced on
• 30:44
  like sort of books there was the abbot's one which was had your your cups and
• 30:50
  balls your linking rings a ball and vase and your silks there was a marshal
• 30:55
  one which was really good and that was more pitched towards like.
• 30:59
  Well so marshall broden was actually a magician very
• 31:02
  popular magician for the time and so having that branding on it really helped
• 31:07
  promote like oh you could be a tv personality you could be this type of pitchman
• 31:11
  and so forth and his sets were sold out through the toy stores and department
• 31:15
  stores and eventually later they were actually advertised in television ads so these kids,
• 31:22
  first exposure to televised magic was through that.
• 31:25
  And it was Marshall Brodian who popularized the Spengali deck.
• 31:32
  Cause that was his kit that had the Spengali deck at first. And the Spengali deck just took over.
• 31:37
  Well, he put it on television. He had, I think the first video commercial with
• 31:42
  a magic trick, right? Were you saying that? Did you say that? Correct.
• 31:47
  Yeah. Yeah. He's the same one that advertises damn stripper deck cards I bought
• 31:52
  from the catalog, from the comic book I couldn't do. Yeah.
• 31:55
  Yeah. I mean, the Sphingali deck was like the centerpiece of a magic kit set.
• 32:02
  Imagine seeing that on TV. I grabbed off the shelf. You're talking about Thayer quality magic?
• 32:06
  Yeah. Is that what that is? These are the Thayer catalogs. Whoa.
• 32:11
  This is four volumes. They reprinted it. I'll give a brief idea of Like, what's in there? Whoa.
• 32:21
  So yeah, it's like, that's what we had to go on back in the day.
• 32:25
  A line drawing, a bunch of text.
• 32:28
  Man, this company must have done pretty well for themselves to have four freaking
• 32:32
  volumes of catalogs available.
• 32:37
  Anyway, if you want to learn more about Thayer Magic, getting that trick supply
• 32:41
  plug-in today. I'd never even heard of Thayer Magic.
• 32:45
  We sell a lot of these. I don't know how we ended up with a bunch of these volumes
• 32:49
  of Thayer quality magic, but this is obviously a desirable set that we do send
• 32:54
  out of this space on a regular basis.
• 32:57
  Are these like a competitor to the Tarbell magic course?
• 33:02
  This is just a reproduction of their catalogs.
• 33:06
  So it's just tricks and their descriptions of what they sold in the catalogs.
• 33:12
  You know, you could buy this or you could buy that or you could buy that. So there's no actual...
• 33:18
  Methods it's just the effects they were selling oh right it's just the the actual
• 33:24
  catalog sales sheet are these no these do have the instructions with hold on,
• 33:32
  ladies and gentlemen coming to you live we have a revolutionary well that's
• 33:36
  what's sort of in my research like these particular ones were popular and the
• 33:41
  reason being is that they actually like as well i know they're very simple with
• 33:45
  line drawings etc but they taught memory, they taught presentation,
• 33:49
  timing, they even taught how to bow,
• 33:51
  how to introduce yourself and how to speak clearly.
• 33:55
  Ain't nobody got time for that.
• 34:03
  I remember Cellini, one of my mentors, he was talking about his first lesson with Slidini.
• 34:10
  He learned everything from Slidini, did all his material. But the first lesson
• 34:15
  was how to walk onto a state.
• 34:18
  So he said, okay, Jim, walk into the room as you're about to start.
• 34:22
  And that's where, you know, that's where the lessons began.
• 34:26
  Not how to lap, not how to do a double lift, but how to present yourself to
• 34:31
  an audience before the show starts.
• 34:33
  Wow. Old school. Yeah.
• 34:36
  Now, of course, many famous magicians, their magical journey was started.
• 34:43
  With ultimately the Christmas magic set and some of the folks who have attested
• 34:48
  to that are folks like we have David Copperfield Doug Henning Johnny Thompson
• 34:53
  Lance Burton and also Jeff McBride.
• 34:57
  Who all started from getting their kits on
• 35:01
  Christmas did David Copperfield put
• 35:04
  out a Copperfield magic set back in the day Doug
• 35:07
  he did I I don't think he did I
• 35:10
  think I would have known about a dc magic kit pretty
• 35:14
  sure he did because copperfield yeah
• 35:18
  the reason i said the reason i say that is milton bradley milton bradley make
• 35:22
  made one for david copperfield it was very limited yeah it was very limited
• 35:27
  and they're very valuable if you have either either the prototypes or the factory samples of this.
• 35:36
  If they're like still sealed and have all the tricks in there that weren't part
• 35:42
  of the main production, you're looking at 30 grand for that set.
• 35:46
  Nice. Yeah. Just think for a second, what would be in a Copperfield Magic set?
• 35:53
  Like I'm thinking like hair products, like hand sanitizer, you know?
• 35:59
  A Hulk suit to wear. Condoms. Condoms.
• 36:03
  Prenumps, lots of prenumps for every girl you meet.
• 36:07
  NDAs. Oh, man. Pirate shirt. Loading rows, I don't know. Pirate shirt.
• 36:12
  Pirate shirt. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:15
  Shoulder pads. No, but like, because you know, he is so finicky about detail
• 36:21
  and quality. Like, I wonder what would actually be inside a magic kit by Copperfield.
• 36:28
  It'd be some insane things.
• 36:31
  It depends. And a lot of them just had like a coin slide and things like that,
• 36:36
  you know, like very simple, but beautiful sort of thing. So it depends, you know?
• 36:41
  There's many different versions of it, but they weren't all too dissimilar from each other.
• 36:46
  Like someone should bring out a magic kit that costs $1,000.
• 36:50
  So it's an investment, but you get like the best shit.
• 36:55
  And I think I would buy- Do like a smoke watch and an ox bender.
• 37:00
  Right. Yeah. Double cross. It also comes with like a suit for you to wear at your gigs.
• 37:07
  Deodorant. A top it. Yeah, deodorant. Breath mints. Extra deodorant means an
• 37:15
  Arctic cooling vest. Cooling vest.
• 37:19
  Okay, let's make, let's at the end of this episode, let's make a kit, all right?
• 37:23
  Let's keep rolling because by the 1950s to 1960s, magic kits were expected at
• 37:29
  Christmas and towing companies planned on yearly releases for these.
• 37:33
  Some kids did magic for a week and then threw them away and then some never stopped.
• 37:38
  Now by the 1950s they exploded
• 37:42
  in popularity and that was because of the post-world war
• 37:45
  ii economic boom suburban life had well and truly settled in by then we weren't
• 37:49
  farmers as much anymore department stores became cultural hubs and tv tv entered
• 37:55
  the homes of a lot of folks and helped with the promotion of magic being popular
• 37:59
  of course and christmas ultimately being the ultimate consumer holiday.
• 38:04
  So what better gift than a magic kit?
• 38:07
  So magic kits didn't just sort of survive this era. They really thrived.
• 38:11
  And by that period, magic sets were a very niche.
• 38:16
  Well, as well as being a sort of niche curiosity, it became a kind of rite of
• 38:19
  passage for most children.
• 38:21
  And most everyone I know, when I perform at a gig, there's always at least one
• 38:24
  person who's like, I see this as a kid, you know, if you're at a large scale event.
• 38:29
  So this could be where anyone's magical journey begins.
• 38:34
  No, just me. Okay. Justify. I say we give thanks to Bill Bixby,
• 38:41
  who put the magician on television,
• 38:43
  and Doug Henning, and all the modern masters who saw television as a viable
• 38:49
  space to promote the art.
• 38:51
  And I think that definitely had an influence on the popularity of magic kits
• 38:55
  in the golden age of department stores.
• 38:59
  Wow. Okay. okay so let's um
• 39:03
  let's skip to this interesting bit where it's more like the big
• 39:06
  names behind the boxes so because here's the thing so
• 39:09
  marshall brodian you know the
• 39:11
  name brodine tv magic cards that's
• 39:14
  my guy the guy that almost ruined everything for me
• 39:17
  okay so he sold
• 39:20
  millions of these is what was reported and his
• 39:23
  popularity was gained from performing on the
• 39:26
  ed sullivan show and he created the tv
• 39:30
  magic cards which was then
• 39:33
  later branded as like the muscle burning magic set so
• 39:37
  his kit included the svengali style
• 39:40
  decks coin trick sponge balls paddle tricks
• 39:43
  and instructions and his
• 39:46
  instructions were described as that they felt very personal which
• 39:50
  was kind of cool and that's because
• 39:53
  he understood the magic kits weren't about the tricks they were about
• 39:56
  the possibility and because of that he sold millions of these and if you look
• 40:01
  in our comments you'll see the scott link actually had one so and it looks like
• 40:06
  doug may have one as well we have the tv magic cards on the back but this is
• 40:10
  this is the man himself and this is pretty cool kid actually.
• 40:15
  Wow so that is marshall brodine this is the tv magic show kit but yeah this
• 40:22
  is the guy that revolutionized magic advertising it on a television and,
• 40:29
  I know. Wormies, the wiggle worm. So that thing's been around since the 1950s?
• 40:37
  Would it have been that? Like this is not vintage, but the.
• 40:41
  But it still exists. I got some of the TV magic cards in the back,
• 40:46
  but they're a little bit back there. So I'm not going to get digging for those right now.
• 40:49
  But if you wanted to see what those look like, I could do it.
• 40:52
  Yeah, that's crazy. Because like, as we sort of go down the chain,
• 40:55
  we're looking in like the 1970s. And that's when, you know, Marvin Magic changed
• 41:00
  the game because they had released. Great comfortable.
• 41:03
  Yeah. Now, Marvin Magic's kits were known for like better, better quality props
• 41:07
  and more clearer instructions, consistent branding, and also really strong ties to real magicians.
• 41:14
  And so this is where often kids were first exposed to this professional style
• 41:19
  of magic, which it says here was actually still dominating the Christmas shelves today. Yeah.
• 41:27
  And so for a lot of folks in the UK as well as Australia, Marvin's was the first
• 41:32
  sort of spark to get that going as far as kits goes.
• 41:35
  Wow. This took me a little longer than I wanted to, but I found a photo,
• 41:39
  if it's real, of Copperfield's magic kit.
• 41:42
  Doug, you've got to see this too, if you can hear us.
• 41:44
  But this is what Google brings up. An old school Copperfield. Let's go.
• 41:51
  That's so 70s. As seen on national TV, 60 magic tricks you can perform.
• 41:57
  It includes a magician's table.
• 42:00
  Oh, look at this for the selling points. The set includes magician's table,
• 42:05
  storage container, publicity poster, magic wand, plus book of 50 tricks.
• 42:12
  I love that you get the publicity poster. That's amazing. That definitely goes in the Copperfield kit.
• 42:20
  Wow. A storage container. Why do you have to mention that there's a storage container within it?
• 42:26
  We have to teach them at a young age for all the magic crap they buy.
• 42:29
  You need some place to put it all.
• 42:33
  Good point. It might have just been a concern when they did their market research
• 42:37
  where, like, what do mothers want?
• 42:39
  Somewhere they can keep it. Okay, well, tell them there's a container in there.
• 42:43
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So during this time, I mean, you look at Copperfield,
• 42:49
  but you got to sort of look between the time of the 1950s to the 1980s,
• 42:54
  where kids were watching Magicians of this Elk.
• 42:56
  Now, during that time, we had folks like Mark Wilson, Doc Henning,
• 43:00
  Paul Daniels, David Nixon.
• 43:02
  There was also the Magic Circle specials that were being televised as well,
• 43:06
  as well as Christmas variety shows. And here's the important part.
• 43:10
  Kids didn't just watch Magic. They were told, you can do this too,
• 43:14
  as shown on the Copperfield box. Yeah.
• 43:18
  So in these sets, look, there's always a variation as to what's in there.
• 43:22
  We've got like our cups and balls, linking rings, ball and vase,
• 43:25
  vanishing silk, coin slides, paddle tricks, Svengali decks, thumb tips, plastic wands.
• 43:33
  And look, it's not a random choice as to why this was actually being done.
• 43:38
  The reason these were promoted for the kids is because the majority of these tricks were angle safe.
• 43:43
  They were reset friendly. they were nearly indestructible and they were designed
• 43:48
  for living room performances which I know magicians who still hold that ethos
• 43:54
  to this day and want to be that type of stalwart let me show you another trick.
• 43:59
  As if they were performing in their lounge rooms let me tell you I had some
• 44:04
  living room performances in my day I threw down a time or two in the living room.
• 44:12
  I had the cassette 101 tricks with the stripper. You know, the old cassette box, that was my music.
• 44:20
  He's a magic man, you know. I was rocking that shit. That's so cool.
• 44:26
  Back then, was everyone trying to do a silent act?
• 44:29
  Back then, as though everyone knew what everyone was doing. No one knew what
• 44:33
  anyone was doing in the 80s.
• 44:36
  You could ask your neighbor what they were doing, they'd tell you,
• 44:39
  but you didn't know what all the magicians were doing.
• 44:41
  Cause like Cause like The famous magicians I see on TV back then They would
• 44:46
  do something Towards the The lines of like Appearing coins From the fingertips
• 44:51
  Then they would Then they would like,
• 44:54
  do a torn or restored newspaper then they'd roll it up with a
• 44:57
  cane in the middle of salt on it the cane would disappear it
• 45:00
  was always like sounds about right that right and then doves but
• 45:03
  it was always like my vibe yeah and it was great but it was always to music
• 45:08
  so I wonder if like for a long time that's how kids would practice their magic
• 45:12
  kits like would they practice with I'm a magic man and do like a silent act
• 45:17
  like as a seven-year-old you know manipulating balls or something,
• 45:22
  i reckon yeah well it's also what's
• 45:25
  cool about this as well is that ordinarily you know when you look back
• 45:28
  at the early 1800s magic was only ever passed down through
• 45:31
  mentorship but what's cool about this is that the instruction manuals effectively
• 45:35
  became the silent mentors of these children so with some of them teaching not
• 45:41
  only how to do the tricks and use the apparatus it also taught them stagecraft
• 45:45
  and how to hold themselves and how to practice alone how to perform for family um.
• 45:52
  As well as that, how to self-teach themselves.
• 45:56
  It taught them about trial and error and also taught them about the ownership
• 45:59
  of the magic as well to own it and protect it. So, Josh?
• 46:04
  Herbert, what are you doing, buddy? Look at this. We're going to give Herbert some love here.
• 46:08
  Should be enough for a Woolies Christmas pudding.
• 46:12
  Saw it three ways. Herbert with the $20 donation.
• 46:16
  Mate, where's my little... Mate, I can't believe it. Thank you so much. Bro.
• 46:23
  Is that an Aussie thing? A Woolies Christmas pudding? What is that?
• 46:27
  Yeah, Woolworths is like our Walgreens, you know?
• 46:32
  What the? Oh, come on. What? Hang on.
• 46:35
  Stop the podcast right now. You guys have lost your mind.
• 46:42
  Aisle four. Clean up an aisle four.
• 46:44
  Okay, you guys are showing off now. David coming in with the $100.
• 46:50
  Let's go. donation just want to
• 46:52
  say thank you for a year of entertainment thank you david geez not to take away
• 46:58
  from herbert herbert we still very much appreciate you and a regular donator
• 47:03
  but david is just showing off now and nice to see that the gigs have been going
• 47:08
  well for you in uh in december.
• 47:11
  Thank you friend thank you for your kindness merry christmas,
• 47:16
  Guess we don't, we don't have to split the pudding anymore. We each get our own pudding now for.
• 47:23
  You get a pudding. You get a pudding.
• 47:27
  You know what? Just to, you know, to bring it full circle.
• 47:31
  I think next week we should all have a pudding in front of us when we do next
• 47:35
  week's episode from our friends here.
• 47:38
  Finally donating. What do you think? Can we all, can we arrange to get a pudding
• 47:42
  in front of each of us next week?
• 47:44
  We can get a pudding. let's all right let's let's only putting in custard live
• 47:48
  i'm gonna paypal me my cut first yeah no it's coming to you i can afford the
• 47:53
  pudding once that converts to to american you'll it well the size might be different
• 47:59
  to ours of the pudding but we're getting you a pudding doug.
• 48:03
  For next week as well just while we're on this topic we want to make an episode
• 48:07
  of the people so we want to hear what you've been up to in this season whether
• 48:11
  it's you've been doing gigs we want to hear the wacky gig stories or just mentally
• 48:16
  how it was getting through all those gigs or anything you've learned doing it,
• 48:19
  or just in general about your year,
• 48:22
  like anything you just want to share with the Magic Guys universe.
• 48:26
  So we're going to mention it on our Instagrams as well, but we want to make
• 48:30
  it, we just want to be able to sit back, hear what you guys have been up to
• 48:33
  and sort of respond to it.
• 48:35
  So the speak pipes are always in the links
• 48:38
  of everywhere you watch our videos or you
• 48:41
  can just go to themagicguysshow.com scroll
• 48:44
  down you'll see the lever speak pipe let's get we already have two
• 48:47
  banked up from our friends that just sent them in while we've
• 48:50
  been streaming but we want to sit back with our
• 48:53
  pudding enjoy and hear you guys take over and yeah i think that'll be that'll
• 48:59
  be super super fun scott did i say sound pipe i meant speak pipe if that if
• 49:04
  i said sound pipe although sound pipe that is essentially what it is a pipe
• 49:09
  coming through of your sound. I never call it the proper thing.
• 49:13
  I just can't believe we've just doubled our earnings of the Magic Guys show
• 49:17
  for the year now from this one episode.
• 49:19
  I could say that. That is incredible. Yeah.
• 49:22
  Now let's wrap up this, guys. So just to reiterate,
• 49:25
  there was a lot of things that history in itself, along with the Industrial
• 49:30
  Revolution, that resulted in us being able to produce these magic kits and influence
• 49:35
  some of the greats. Some of the greats include Copperfield.
• 49:38
  Even Penn Jillette was inspired by this.
• 49:41
  He says that it was the early exposure to magic
• 49:44
  kits and joke shop magic which inspired
• 49:47
  him and his emphasis was how bad magic
• 49:50
  pushed him to think critically critically and make good
• 49:53
  stuff even darren brown was gifted a magic
• 49:56
  kit at his career and it even says that di
• 49:59
  vernon had acts like was gifted
• 50:02
  one of these as well as a child so there is a lot of important
• 50:05
  framing involved here okay because magic sets didn't make these magicians great
• 50:10
  it opened the door and made them feel powerful and it turned the impossible
• 50:14
  into a maybe i can learn this and that's the important thing about getting one's
• 50:19
  first magic kit so think about that as you go into.
• 50:23
  Christmas this season, and anyone who you think might be a potential great magician
• 50:29
  someday, because the first time a child experiences this secrecy,
• 50:34
  it's a wonderful thing because it's the first time that they will own knowledge that others don't.
• 50:40
  And it's the first time they can control an emotional reaction that they can
• 50:44
  gift people through the art of magic.
• 50:47
  It's the type of thing that will teach them timing, patience.
• 50:51
  It'll teach them how to rehearse. It'll teach them failure and
• 50:54
  it'll also teach him confidence and it's all going to be wrapped
• 50:57
  up in a little bit of brown paper underneath the
• 51:00
  christmas tree so magic kits
• 51:03
  still matter even in a digital age because sure there's stuff out there on youtube
• 51:08
  and tiktok that exposes everything but that's not what a magic kit is about
• 51:12
  it's not about teaching or exposing it's about influencing them it's about teaching
• 51:18
  them the physical engagement with props, economy of movement.
• 51:22
  It's teaching them how to delay their reward and not just look at something,
• 51:28
  know it, and then doom scroll.
• 51:30
  Magic is something that's earned through these practices, through rehearsing.
• 51:34
  There's a level of ownership that they will inherit. This is your secret.
• 51:40
  The moment you tell someone that secret, it's not worth anything anymore.
• 51:44
  And that's the beauty of a magic kit. So I say this because there's a kind of
• 51:49
  a responsibility to the modern magician.
• 51:51
  And there's a strong place to land philosophically, I suppose.
• 51:54
  And that's just to go forward and take a little moment to respect the beginner magician.
• 51:59
  And not mock the magic sets. And just a little reminder that look at where we
• 52:04
  came from to where we're going.
• 52:06
  Because every cheap plastic trick has potentially the ability to give someone
• 52:11
  their first standing ovation.
• 52:13
  Their first moment of wonder or even inspire their career so i kind of want to close by saying that.
• 52:22
  With a magic kit you can give someone identity imagination
• 52:26
  and possibility and these are all permission slips
• 52:29
  to try something impossible so this
• 52:32
  christmas when the kid opens a magic kit and half
• 52:36
  the tricks barely work and the instructions are confusing and
• 52:39
  the one feels cheap just remember that's exactly
• 52:42
  how a lot of us started and for a
• 52:45
  few of those kids the box won't be a toy it'll
• 52:49
  be a beginning yes indeed and for
• 52:52
  a lot of us it's still how we are now we're still opening boxes
• 52:55
  of tricks that arrive and it's still sometimes a
• 52:59
  crappy plastic thing yeah look i had
• 53:02
  to start working at a magic shop to keep the vibe flowing like
• 53:05
  i'm like a kid at christmas every day in this joy yeah it's
• 53:08
  so fun to be here all right so i was gonna say in the closing moments of this
• 53:13
  episode if we were gonna make the magic guys magic kit yes just as uh dragoteer
• 53:20
  is brought up okay so deck of cards already in the set what are you guys putting
• 53:23
  in the rest of it now are we going like gimmicks or are we going like,
• 53:28
  Props that you have to, you know, intense sleight of hand learn with.
• 53:34
  Okay, maybe let's pick one thing or like one or two things each that would go
• 53:39
  in it. Arctic cooling vest.
• 53:42
  Done. Maybe that's like the professional survival kit. Okay.
• 53:48
  Okay, so the magic kids, no the magic guys, the magic kids magic set.
• 53:55
  Ooh, okay. Okay. Nice. Yeah.
• 53:59
  So a magic kid should have a wand, most definitely.
• 54:06
  Maybe a rising wand?
• 54:09
  That's a good choice. A wand that includes a gimmick with it, so it does something.
• 54:14
  Yeah, that's good. Now I'm trying not to jump straight to what I know are in
• 54:18
  normal magic kits. I'm trying to think of what we would put in it. Now here's a question.
• 54:22
  Doug, if this is for kids obviously sponge
• 54:26
  bunnies is a great effect but should kids be given that to learn or should it
• 54:31
  be reserved for when adults show kids yeah both actually i think sponge balls
• 54:37
  in particular is a good trick to introduce to a young magician because it gives them,
• 54:44
  They have to use skill to make the magic happen as opposed to just buying gimmicked
• 54:47
  apparatus to, you know, make the trick work.
• 54:51
  As I was late to this podcast, I was selling a family. I had two young men,
• 54:56
  children, and their father.
• 54:58
  They got some sponge balls. They got a rising cards.
• 55:02
  It's a great, easy, powerful trick. They got a set of delights.
• 55:06
  Oh, yeah. It's a great idea. Awesome.
• 55:08
  They're just fun, right? You can have fun with that whether or not you're creating magical moments.
• 55:13
  Kind of can't go wrong with delights and then the father was suggesting the ball and vase and i i.
• 55:20
  Pivoted towards we have a nice plastic chop cup that
• 55:23
  we sell for like eight dollars and this kid was like 10 or 11 years old so a
• 55:27
  little bit beyond the plastic ball and vase and so they got one of those too
• 55:31
  but i kind of mentioned my kid earlier like i feel like that's that could go
• 55:35
  in any any starter kit but that's
• 55:37
  an example of what i sold less than an hour ago and man you You know,
• 55:42
  whenever I have a, this just makes my day.
• 55:45
  When a father comes in with his children to show them the magic shop experience,
• 55:50
  and then I see these kids light up and, you know, the dad wanted a close-up
• 55:55
  pad. So the kid was like, oh, I got to get one too. And he got a pad.
• 55:58
  And I know they're all going to go home later. They're not going to be watching
• 56:01
  the computer screen or, you know, they're going to be spending time together,
• 56:05
  rehearsing the magic, bonding as a family.
• 56:08
  And, you know, it doesn't happen enough in this room. but it's
• 56:11
  like i wish i could do this all day long yeah that's
• 56:16
  what i did earlier anyway on a tangent there
• 56:19
  a wholesome content yeah yeah
• 56:22
  liquid forks liquid forks going in there that's what i remember getting shown
• 56:26
  when i went into wow what liquid forks when i went into hey presto in pit street
• 56:33
  back in the day in sydney wow one of the first things the magician there showed
• 56:38
  me was the bending fork Morgan Strebler's liquid metal DVD.
• 56:43
  He performed it and it blew my mind so much that I had to buy it instantly because
• 56:47
  I couldn't understand how he was mentally bending these forks.
• 56:51
  And I freaking bought it. And then so did the next idiot that came in after me.
• 56:55
  And I never performed it for like two years after getting that DVD because I
• 56:59
  was such an amateur at the time.
• 57:02
  Okay. I think I know what needs to be in the kit okay
• 57:05
  so i think that like a rising wand to begin some crappy basic cups and balls
• 57:12
  right or just cups you know with some balls i think a rubik's cube yeah now
• 57:18
  we're talking okay you with me and i think i think maybe even a change bag.
• 57:24
  A change bag yeah yeah i
• 57:28
  think a good change bag could be really good that is
• 57:31
  scott shippy local professional work magic counters
• 57:34
  for 20 years in this city he was in here yesterday buying tricks
• 57:37
  for his nephews and nieces you got a change bag i'll tell you i'll tell you
• 57:42
  one other thing you got and this is a good example of modern magic kits like
• 57:46
  it's not a kit but this is zach king's steel and you can find it in Walmart
• 57:52
  and modern shopping environment inside of a magic shop.
• 57:57
  So this is an example of a modern professional doing well for themselves that
• 58:00
  can reach a lot of people and how he would market magic to, you know, the public.
• 58:05
  And these are one trick wonders, kind of like Tenyo stuff, but was that king,
• 58:10
  you know, promoting it in the modern media and bringing it to the public.
• 58:14
  So those are all great. Anything in that line is fantastic.
• 58:18
  How many consist in the trick starters sort of
• 58:21
  lineup at the moment they launched with four
• 58:24
  and i would expect there'll be more i know our
• 58:27
  distributor is sold out of two of the items already so
• 58:31
  i don't know what the pipeline is to get stuff
• 58:34
  to like murphy's magic after walmart gets it but you
• 58:37
  know murphy's can't keep it in stocks wow what are they retailing 20 bucks a
• 58:41
  piece which is you know a bit much but also this it's a quality apparatus that
• 58:47
  a kid can give a really strong experience with and you're not rolling the dice on 75 tricks,
• 58:54
  you're just buying one killer piece, right?
• 58:56
  And highly desirable collectible which is kind of cool and I kind of want to
• 59:01
  share one more tidbit because I looked at all the different prices of what these
• 59:04
  go for and I wanted to find what was the highest paid magic kit and there was
• 59:12
  a complete Houdini associated box set,
• 59:17
  And this kit sold for over 200,000 US dollars at auction.
• 59:26
  Did you see it at Copperfields Museum, Doug?
• 59:29
  Did I see what? Did you see it at Copperfields Museum?
• 59:33
  Wow. I didn't. Was it, is it there? I w I just, I know he's got some bank and
• 59:38
  I know that he has. I'll tell you, that's an easy place to miss something.
• 59:41
  I'm sure he's got probably 3000 magic kits in that warehouse.
• 59:45
  I, I, I've. The best, the best moment of that tour was David talking about when
• 59:50
  he saw his pitch, when he saw this guy pitching this trick,
• 59:54
  his first, you know, the first trick he bought from a magic pitchman and then
• 59:58
  it blossoms into Tannen's magic shop.
• 1:00:02
  Do I remember a magic kit? No. I'm sure there's a bunch there though. Yeah. Oof.
• 1:00:09
  Well, on that bombshell. Yeah, on that bombshell. Look, man,
• 1:00:14
  now I'm excited for next week.
• 1:00:15
  We're going to have a pudding each. We're going to be in, it'll be the last
• 1:00:19
  episode before Christmas.
• 1:00:21
  I, that might, yeah, it's, there'll be the. Pudding is enough,
• 1:00:24
  Norbido. Pudding is all we need to know.
• 1:00:27
  Pudding and speak pipes. That might be what it's called. Yeah.
• 1:00:30
  So we know you guys have been busy. we know you've done
• 1:00:33
  a bunch of green room stuff nick's been judging everyone bless
• 1:00:36
  your heart nick we know we know there's going to be some
• 1:00:39
  good story so let's let's promote you guys let's
• 1:00:42
  celebrate you guys and how well you've done
• 1:00:45
  over the year because i know that a lot of you guys have been listening anyone
• 1:00:49
  who's part of our discord sees that you guys are gigging you're creating there
• 1:00:53
  is so much cool stuff in our discord if you are not a part of it in fact a lot
• 1:00:57
  of folks we've been talking about like magic club stuff and that they wanted
• 1:01:01
  to be part of them and so forth. And should they join them and whatever else?
• 1:01:03
  And I was kind of like, I don't know, man, do we become a club?
• 1:01:06
  Do we become a discord club where we catch up once a month? I don't know.
• 1:01:09
  But because I don't know how to run a club, but I'm entertaining the idea.
• 1:01:13
  So what I'm getting at is folks like we want to do like magic clubs do a thing called harmony.
• 1:01:18
  And what you do is you talk about stuff you've learned stuff you want to share.
• 1:01:21
  You guys have been doing gigs. We want to hear about it while we eat pudding.
• 1:01:25
  So please send through your speak Pipes. We'll put the link in our Discord as
• 1:01:30
  well as in the link of this video. We want to hear from you.
• 1:01:35
  Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
• 1:01:40
  But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.