5 Stars

I love these beautiful brass bullet wands from Shawn Reida 🙂

Shawn has been the resident pro and right hand man of Mark Stevens at Stevens Magic for many years.  He has created a few items over the years, some of which have been sold directly by Stevens Magic and some are sold on at his store on eBay.

But my favorite of his items are easily these hand-made brass bullet wands.  They come in four main models:

1. Standard Size
2. Standard Size with magnetic tips
3. Mini Size (7″)
4. Mini Size (7″) with magnetic tips (this one)

Shawn will also customize the location of the magnet if you don’t want it directly in the tip and he’s a really nice guy to work with, and will go out of his way to make you happy.

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Most of us use a stripper deck when we first get into magic then forget about them as we get older.  Recently I needed one for a particular effect and thought I would try out these Professional Grade Cards from Stevens Magic.  Well they were so much better than the standard ones I’d been using I decided to upgrade many of my gimmicked decks. 

These are made by Steven Perry who is a professional card mechanic and does an amazing job for just a few dollars more.  These are not bulk manufactured, each deck is made by hand with meticulous attention to quality control and precision.

If you need any sort of standard or custom gimmick deck I suggest you contact Stevens Magic and I’m confident you will switch too, I know personally I’ll never go back to the mass dealer ones 🙂

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The most popular rough and smooth deck of all time! Although, it is often mis-credited to Burling Hull, it is precisely the same deck as Joe Berg’s Ultra-Mental Deck c. 1936.  The now standard “invisible deck” comedy presentation was conceived by Eddie Fields and  popularized by Don Alan.

These are made by Steven Perry who is a professional card mechanic and does an amazing job for just a few dollars more.  These are not bulk manufactured, each deck is made by hand with meticulous attention to quality control and precision.  The rough is solid and will not let you down under pressure.

If you need any sort of standard or custom gimmick deck I suggest you contact Stevens Magic and I’m confident you will switch too, I know personally I’ll never go back to the mass dealer ones 🙂

Click here for more information.

It is not clear who invented the original version of the Prayer Vase  but ads started appearing in the 1930’s.  Davenport’s called it the Demon Enchanted Vase (c. 1934), Floyd Thayer called it The Chinese Jug and Rope (c. 1936) and Abbott’s called it The Oriental Vase Mystery (c. 1936).  In the Abbott’s adverts they say it was of Oriental origin and that it was first introduced to America by Percy Abbott.

This beauty was created by George Robinson of Viking Mfg. and it is turned of white gumwood and painted with several coats of lacquer.  Hand cut decals are then applied with three finishing coats of clear lacquer and a final waxing to complete the process. 

The vase does not use the standard method and when it was released it did not even include a rope and original gimmick.  To my mind it better if you can do the original rope version first then introduce the wand and use the new method to give an overall better effect.  So I’ve included a rope, gimmick and instructions for the original.

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This effect was original created by Eric Lewis c. 1947 and is still being created by Eric’s son Martin Lewis. When Eric Lewis and Magikraft Studios first released this they used a special custom holder which worked fine, however it did look a little more like a gimmick.  More recently they released a version using a custom made plastic wine glass.  The wine glass works just as well and looks less like a prop so that is the version you probably should look for.

This is what Martin Lewis says about the change: “My father, Eric Lewis, created the Comedy Come-Back Card and designed an acrylic houlette for use with it, wine glasses being too breakable. If acrylic wine glasses existed in his day I’m sure he would have used one. A wine glass and napkin are far more innocuous looking and lend elegance to the effect.”

It really is a very simple effect that has a wonderful impact on the audience.

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Wow what a stunning set of Passe Passe bottles and these are in immaculate condition.

When these were first released Richard Himber had multiple versions of Canada Dry effects, including: 

• Canada Dry Vanish,
• a Shrinking Bottles effect,
• a Diminishing Bottles effect and,
• a Passe Passe Bottles effect,

and they were often mixed and matched.  This is basically the Passe Passe set – it comes in the original red box but comes with no instructions. 

Because the bottles nest you could of course use it to vanish or appear a bottle.  As far as I can understand it Richard Himber paid a fortune for the moulds ($1,250 in 1947, about $15,000 today) and wanted to get as much out of his investment as possible.

The other nice thing about this set is that all tubes, bottles and glasses all nest into one small package.

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What a wonderful classic piece of magic from Tricks Co., very high quality chromed vase with a surprisingly large load chamber. They really don’t make them like this anymore!

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This is a very worthy attempt by Jim Sherman’s National Magic Company to create a card box as good as P&L’s stunning Ultra Perfect Card Box. 

My photos don’t really do it justice and every blemish and fingerprint seems to be emphasized, but  you can see how close Jim got.  If you compare this with the P&L there is almost no difference in quality at all.  Although I admit you can’t tell from the photos but if you saw it in person it looks nothing like as bad as the photos are showing.  The video was shot a day later and you can see how shiny the box is.  You won’t be disappointed I promise!

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Here is another clever beauty from Germany’s modern day micro-magic master craftsman: Thomas Pohle.  The basic effect is one where a freely chosen star disappears from one tube only to appear printed on a previously shown blank plaque.

But Thomas has put in some features to throw off the scent for magicians.  The vanish of the star is the cleverest part of this effect – if you watch the video after the star has vanished he then breaks open the tube and there is clearly nothing in there – no missing star.  If you think about this it really defies explanation and it will fool magicians and lay people alike.  Even the reappearance of the star on the blank tablet has a nice feature because not only can you show the tablet clearly blank on both sides it can be any one of the colors.

The two minor downsides with this effect are:

• Mechanically there is a lot going on and so much so that after making ten of these Thomas stopped production – the tolerances and effort were too much!  If you have one that is not a downside of course 🙂
• You have to spend some time practicing the disappearance and the appearance of the correct star.  But read the instructions, particularly the extra ones that Joe Long added for Thomas, watch the explanation video from Thomas, and spend some time with the props in your hand to really understand what is going on.  It reads more complex than it is and once you have played with it for a while you will be fine, but make sure to give it the time it deserves.

If you do, you’ll have a fooler that looks amazing. 

Click here for more information.