Tricks – Page 14 – MagicShow.Tips

Trick Supply in Las Vegas

During a break in the Magic Collector Expo, Brian, Brett, Terry, Chris and I headed over to Trick Supply in Las Vegas. Wolfgang the owner who was running the booth at the expo said it was “10 mins away”, so we hopped in a 20 minute $40 Uber to his shop’s location.

It was worth the trip! The show was run by Doug Conn and it’s a super well stocked magic shop, we all picked up a few things.

Personally I love production items, I’m not sure why, but I do. I was looking at this skull, light bulb and corn.

I ended up buying the light bulb and the corn. I’m not sure how I’m going to use the corn, but I have an idea for the light bulb.

If you’re in the Las Vegas area, it’s a great shop and totally worth a stop!

-Louie

Magic Collector Expo Dealer’s Room

Here’s a little peek at the dealer’s room at the Magic Collector Expo:

There’s more, I just took those pics as the doors opened and not all the dealers were set up yet. Lots of books and posters, as for props there was a lot of smaller things. I didn’t see a lot of bigger props, it could be that many of the dealers and attendees flew in, so it’s harder to move those larger props around.

I picked up a few things (so far):

Nothing super crazy. The main things are the blue 28 foot streamer, which will be in my summer show. I was planning on producing a 36 inch silk, but the streamer will have a bigger impact as a lot of the volume of a square silk is lost.

The other thing I will use is the Ali-Baba box in half dollar size. I have a quarter size and it’s just too small, so the half dollar size is a nice upgrade for the routine that I do.

The other things are for me to mess around with.

-Louie

German Vanishing Bird Cage

It’s been a crazy few weeks for adding vanishing bird cages to my collection! At the last Potter and Potter auction this vanishing bird cage was listed:

This one went for an amount that I could afford! Lately the ones being auctioned off have gone for crazy amounts of money, but those were also a bit more collectible. This one doesn’t have a name (manufacturer or performer) attached to it, so I think that’s partially why it went for less than they’ve been going for.

I can’t wait for this one to show up!

-Louie

My First Vanishing Birdcage

When I was a teenager I was given a La Galeria -The Gallery of Merlin vanishing birdcage that had a couple of broken bars. I used that for a long time and struggled through the broken bar occasionally snagging on my sleeve. Then about 12years ago I had someone fix the bars, and I used that cage until I got an Owen vanishing bird cage.

Recently one of the La Galeria -The Gallery of Merlin vanishing bird cages popped up for sale and I bought it!

The solder and rivets on the bars of this one appear to be in much better condition that the one I’ve have for 30+ years. I’m happy to add this to my collection and can’t wait for it to arrive!
-Louie

Gold at the End of the Rainbow!

These gold coins are simply Eisenhauer dollar coins that I painted gold. They are for my summer library show.

My show is about colors and have a magic wand that I painted like a rainbow. At the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold, so I’m going to produce a coin from the end of the rainbow magic wand. Then I’ll produce multiple coins (with the Sylvester Pitch), then do a series of vanishes and productions with a single coin that ends with the production of a jumbo coin.

I always try to have some sort of a sleight of hand sequence in my family show. It’s a way I can show that I can do the stuff and it’s not just prop driven. While this isn’t 100% necessary, I do this for me!

-Louie

Breakaway Flower

Another prop for my summer library show is a breakaway flower. This is like the old breakaway wand comedy prop, but it’s flower.

It does have one other bonus bit to it, the top flower separates from the stem. They are attached by a magnet. The idea for the routine will be that the flower is going to disappear. It breaks and it put it back together a few times. Then the flower separates from the stem. I toss the flower in the air and it disappear, but the kids notice it’s stuck to my butt. The flower finally disappears (in a devils hank?) and reappears somewhere else.

Nothing super crazy here, but a way to theme the breakaway wand from a comedy prop that’s added to a routine, to it being one of the main props for the routine.

-Louie

Goldfish Cracker Puppet

I’m working on my library show for this summer. The show is going to have a trick for all of the colors of the rainbow. For orange I’m going to use a puppet that will do a card trick. I didn’t like the commercially made goldfish puppets, then I thought of the goldfish cracker. I liked that look and it’s funnier than a puppet that looks like a real goldfish.

Unfortunately no one make a goldfish cracker puppet, so I had to build one. I did find someone on TikTok that had made some, but isn’t currently making them. That meant I had to make my own:

This one is almost done, I need to put the eyes on it. I want to rig it so that one of the eyes will fall off, and I need to figure out how that’s going to happen.

This was my first time making a soft puppet, and it came out OK. It only needs to do about 30 shows this summer and not last for years. In the future I’d probably make it out of a different material that’s not felt. The felt will get fuzzy and “pill” with travel and use.

Overall the prop looks good enough and will get through the shows.

-Louie

Library Magic Show

This year I’m a bit late working on my library magic show. Normally I’d have it written out and have most of the props built. This year I’m just getting to the brainstorming stage. My show is going to have a trick for each color of the rainbow.

Here’s some of my initial brainstorming notes:

One thing I noticed once I started brainstorming was that a lot of things that I associated with colors were food. I don’t want the whole show to be about food, so I had to think harder and now only about half the show is about food!

The other challenge is to vary the magical effects in the show. I noticed that I had a lot of tricks that were productions, but the show can’t just be all things appearing. I added a card trick, a transformation (actually two) and a transposition. Hopefully that will provide enough variation of magic effect in the show.

-Louie

Coin to Key Chain!

I’ve been doing a coin to key chain for a while now and I love it! The effect is you show your lucky coin that’s permanently embedded in a fob. Then another coin is signed and reappears as your lucky coin that’s permanently embedded in your key chain!

The lucky coin could be given out in its holder as a souvenir!

What I love about this trick is that it lives on my keychain, all I need to do is borrow a marker! I’ll probably make a batch of these at some point and offer them for sale.

-Louie