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Hocus Pocus Magic in Fresno!

One of the things I like about the two week gig in Fresno that I’m at right now is that I get to hang out at Hocus Pocus magic shop! It’s fun chatting with Max, Paul and Betty, they’ve got a cool shop!

One of the fun things they recently did was release a limited run of “hocus pocus” square circles.

These look great and work great! It’s a fun idea and they say they’re thinking of making releasing a special hocus pocus magic prop every year. That’s a fun idea!

Of course while I was there I visited some of my magic tricks

I think they have the last two of my Slow Poke coin tricks. I don’t think I can get them made anymore.

If you’re in the Fresno area, shoot them and note and arrange a time stop by!

-Louie

Three Card Prince

There are some tricks that I’ve always wanted to do and Harry Anderson’s Three Card Prince/Monarch is one of them. It probably comes from me getting the book Wise Guy when I was a teenager and just getting serious into magic.

You can watch the routine here:

There were two version of this put out. The Three Card Monarch and The Three Card Prince. The difference was size, the prince was the smaller size, however both haven’t been made in years.

I recently came across a used set…a very used set.

This set was gross, it very discolored from use. I bought it and hoped I could clean it up. I took a Magic Eraser and started to clean them up. Here’s a before and after of the face of one of the cards:

They now look gently used instead of beat to crap! I’m excited to learn the routine and try it out in a show. I don’t know if it will work in the show, but even if I only do it once, it’ll be good to have done it and gotten it out of my system!

-Louie

Digging Around at Hocus Pocus!

One of the things that I like about performing in Fresno is getting to visit Hocus Pocus! I love digging through their bins of junk magic looking for things like packet tricks, or strange little props that were never commercial successes.

One of the things I like to do is buy them and try to figure out better ways to do them, or other effects to do with the gimmicks. I should be posting some videos in the next couple of weeks of what I found!

Keep an eye out!

-Louie

Puzzle Coin!

My friend Rolando Medina recently started selling Puzzle Coins! These are coins that he’s cut into a puzzle. These are really interesting, and there’s a ton of puns with the word puzzle that you could use.

“Do you want to see the most puzzling coin trick I do?” Then the coin turns into the puzzle pieces.

Here are a few ideas:

1: Show a half dollar.
This is a trick that takes me hours to figure out
Put the half dollar into your left hand, which makes a fist around it.
I never know if I should start with the edges or the middle…
Open you hand to reveal the puzzle pieces

2: Have a half dollar sitting on the table, you wave your hand over it and it turns into the puzzle half dollar!
– simply use a Raven and a shimmed shell

3: Could use it at a follow up to Karate Coin
After you stab the coin on your finger, you then smash the coin into little bits (not specifically revealing they’re puzzle pieces)

I think these coins are great for making social media videos as the close up video of them can really show off the detail.

I think he’s really underpriced them at $39.99 and they should be a few bucks more…but I’ll take them for cheaper than what I think they’re worth! Aside from using them, they are just cool to have on your shelf!

-Louie

Apparition Coin Set

When I was at Stevens Magic Emporium a few weeks ago and picked up Craig Petty’s Apparition coin set, it got me doing coin magic again. For some reason I had stopped doing it in my close up set. One of the reasons that I had stopped was pocket space, there’s not a neat way to keep four silver dollars and a shell in your pocket along with everything else I need in my pockets.

The thing that getting the Apparition set got me to do was use a coin purse. Honestly, I’m against using a coin purse, as it’s not something that people see anymore. It might as well be a change bag, it resembles something older people see.

Think about it, when was the last time you saw someone use a coin purse that wasn’t a magician?

The Apparition coin set is a neat little bundle in my pocket, so I needed to figure out how to justify the coin purse. Then it hit me, it was one simple line, “This is my Nana’s coin purse, can you guess what’s inside?”

That’s it.

That line solved the problem, now it’s not a strange prop.

I will say that as I’ve been using the gaffed coins, I’ve really phased out using the coin purse as a gimmick and it’s simply a holder for the coins. I think I’m going to go out and find a cool, vintage coin purse for my current coin routine to give it a bit more character.

-Louie

ProMystic 50/50

ProMystic just put out a new trick called 50/50 and it’s great! It’s basically a location of someone holding a stack of your money.

The base routine is someone out of a group holds some money of yours. You say you’re betting your money that you can find it. You then narrow down the group until you have one person left and they have your money.

What I like about the routine is that it really fills the stage with a few bills. It also has a feeling of a chance of failure and while the method isn’t 100% is is 99.9% surefire. There is a strange scenario that I can imagine where it could fail, but it’s very unlikely.

I’ve done this three times as preshow and it’s worked great! I need to do some writing and hopefully can move it into the show soon!

-Louie

Obedient Walnut

A few months ago I found some Obedient Walnut tricks in a bin of junk magic at a magic shop. This is a version of a classic trick where you have an object with a string running through it, in this case it’s a plastic walnut. As the walnut slides down the string, it stops whenever you want it to.

Honestly, from a magic perspective, it’s not really a good trick, it’s pretty obvious how it works. I did pick up three of them out of the junk bin as I had an idea for a routine with them. The routine is an interesting idea, but still a bad trick.

I did it once, it confirmed it’s not the best idea or trick and now I can throw away the Obedient Walnuts.

-Louie

No 25 Gilbert Mysto Magic Show Set!

Recently when I was travelling, I came across this magic set in a junk shop

And here’s the picture of the lower tray

They really don’t make magic sets like this anymore. Everything has it’s own neat package, there’s some glass props, if I had the space to properly display it, it’d probably be more interested in it. However I think a bit overpriced at $795! I’m not a magic kit collector, but based on the people I talked to it priced about double what it’s worth.

-Louie

Steven’s Magic Emporium

A couple of weeks ago I was travelling from Nebraska to Arizona and drove a few hours out of my way to visit Steven’s Magic Emporium in Wichita, KS. I’ve gotten their catalog since I was a teenager and attended several of their Desert Magic Seminar conventions in Las Vegas as a teenager.

I think with my visit to Steven’s Magic Emporium I’ve hit all the major magic shops in the USA. I guess the only one that I haven’t been to is Daytona Magic, but I’ve worked their convention, so I feel like that counts.

Unfortunately when I was there, there weren’t any “magicians” working, so I had to tell them what I was looking for. That’s fine, however chatting and then having the person working the counter say, “have you seen…” is very helpful!

I did pick up Craig Petty’s Apparition. When I was in Grand Island, NE, Nate Myers showed it to me and it was similar to something I was working on. I also picked up a couple of other things, like some Hypno Heat for an idea I have.

This is a pretty cool coin transposition using a silver dollar and a Chinese coin. There’s a lot that can be done with the coin set, and I’m excited to start playing with it!

-Louie

Junk Magic from a Junk Shop

I was killing time between shows and was walking through a junk shop and they have a briefcase full of magic. They wanted too much for it at $60, so I negotiated a bit and got it for a reasonable price.

Most of the stuff was garbage, but there were a few cool things. There were four sets of Johnson Scotch and Soda sets and I have a buddy who uses that, so he now has a lifetime supply of them!

One of the interesting things was a trick called Space Coins.

It’s essentially a boston box, but it’s got the fake see through bottom that’s “black art” or more like red art. I’m not a fan of the fake see through thing were you needed to put the prop on a specific surface.

I will say I was super surprised when I tried it out of people that it got great reactions, so I’m not always right. It’s always good to be proven wrong.

-Louie