Magicians frequently ask me where I get my vintage magic tricks. Well, there’s not one source; this one kinda happened out of the blue. Basically, someone at a show told me they had an old box of magic tricks. We negotiated a price at the show, and I bought the box without knowing what was in it!
Here’s the saga:
There are some winners in that box!
-Louie
Whenever I’m in the San Francisco area, I pop by the Magic Garage! It’s a great hangout with a bunch of magicians.
While I was there I did my Nest of Envelopes trick that I’m working on and got some great feedback!
Having a room full of magicians to give you ideas, or tell you that something doesn’t look right, is worth its weight in gold!
Things like this or magic clubs are great ways to get feedback on things you’re working on. I’m a huge fan of magic clubs, and I think everyone should go to them. They helped me out a lot when I was younger!
-Louie
In a box of old magic, I found a couple of card that were see through, but had the numbers and pips printed on them. I think they were from a trick by Astor, but they had no instructions.
Here’s what I came up with:
There’s not much to it. Force the 9 of diamonds, then steal it out of the deck. Simple and direct.
This was the obvious choice for a real world trick. What I really want to do is a snap change so a normal card visually turns clear! I’m working on it, but it doesn’t quite look right yet. This would be a trick for video.
-Louie
You can read a post about creativity and trick development here!
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
I will be out of town performing at the San Diego County Fair in San Diego, CA from June 22nd to July 6th, 2026. That means no orders of physical items will ship until I return on July 7th, 2026.
Digital items will still be emailed during this time!
You can also get many of my magic products from TrickSupply.com in Las Vegas. You can order my magic from them at:
https://tricksupply.com/product-category/louie-foxx/
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
The film cans that I use for my Film Can Dice Force aren’t made anymore. They still make film cans, but the ones currently made don’t work for the gimmick. I have to source mine on the “used film can market”.
The last batch that I got were super beat up and I had to refurbish(?) them. The can on the left is what they look like when I got them:
The middle can is after I gave them a wipe down, and the can on the right is after I buffed them with my Dremel! The amount of labor that goes into making the Film Can Dice Forces is way too much for what I charge for them!
-Louie
Close up pads used to last me for years, now not so much. The difference is that I use them frequently for roving magic, not just practicing at home. That means they have to look clean or at least not gross.
Between replacing these for my close up/roving magic and my stage magic show’s consumables, my show generates a lot of trash. I wish it was less, but that’s how it is.
I’m really liking the economy close up pads. They’re not the best, but for an item that I replace sometimes after a single gig, I’m willing to compromise for the price. Also they’re slightly lighter than the nice close up magic pads, so that’s handy if I’m flying to a gig.
If you use a close up pad in your work, really look at it closely and see how clean it is. Sometimes comparing it next to a new one will show you how beat up your old one really is!
-Louie
Recently, I was on a quick vacation to Chicago, and one of the things we did was go on a Pizza Tour. At our last stop on the tour, we were sitting at a table with a family that had a kid who was probably six years old. This was a great moment for sneaking in a magic trick. The family didn’t know I was a magician, so it would be a surprise.
What trick did I do?
Since I didn’t have anything on me, I did an impromptu trick where it looked like I swallowed a knife. I learned at a Tony Clark lecture when I was a teenager at Bob Goodsell’s West Coast Wizards Magic Camp in the early 1990’s. It’s a great trick and if you don’t know it, it’s worth learning!
I asked the kid how he liked his pizza, then I said that I loved it so much I wanted to eat the knife (that I cut it with), and then I did! I played it for real and that’s one of those moments of pure wonder that I created!
As a magician, you should be able to do something at any moment, sometimes it’s an improvised trick and sometimes it’s a planned trick that you carry with you. Also, just because you CAN do a trick and any time, it doesn’t me you have to!
Moments like that are great and perfect for impromptu magic!
-Louie
I picked up the booklet Card Man Stuff by Al Leech recently and I’m digging it!
The stuff in it is older school card magic, and the clunkiness, I think, can be easily fixed. For example, he used the cut deeper force to have a card selected, and that’s a move that I really dislike. I think the problem with that force is that when the cards aren’t in face up and face down clumps, it kinda gives it away. There are better forces that can be done in its place.
The first trick is the production of a four of a kind, and that naturally flows into the second trick, which is a transposition of the two four of a kind sets of cards. I like things in books that can be routines that flow from one to the next to eliminate set up in the second trick, but still work as stand alone magic tricks if needed.
Despite the clunkiness, the tricks are pretty direct, which I like!
-Louie
Yesterday I wrote a post about doing a Chop Cup with a film can and “weed nugs”. What I was using for fake weed looked really green. It’s probably been over two decades since I’ve seen what they look like in real life, so I had to consult a friend of mine who partakes in that marijuana. He agreed and sent me some pictures of what they should look like.
The one on the right is the bright green one, and the one on the left is one after I gave it a dusting of a couple of colors of paint.
I think the one on the left looks way better, not perfect, but good enough to sell the premise to an audience. Things like getting the color of a nugget of weed is one of the challenges of magic prop building that magicians don’t normally think about. I don’t want the chopped weed nugs to look so bad that it takes people mentally out of the presentation hook of the routine.
I’m not sure where I’ll ever do this routine. I have an idea for the presentation that I think works. I personally don’t smoke marijuana, and am not involved in that culture. When performing, my persona is more clean cut, so pretending this is mine doesn’t work. I needed to come up with a routine that doesn’t feel fake. I’ll probably write a blog post about how I intend to present this sometime in the future.
-Louie
Since I released my Film Can Dice Force, I have a ton of film cans kicking around and have been playing on a chop cup with a film can and “weed nugs”.
I’m trying to work out the most efficient way to arrange everything for what I want to do:
1: The magnet is in the film can, and the weed nug has a shim
2: The film can has a shim, and a magnet is in the weed nug
3: The film can and nug both have a magnet
These props are kinda unique, as the fake weed nugs have really no weight to them. So it’s hard to build inertia to dislodge them. The little bit of weight that a traditional ball has really makes a huge difference in how hard you have to set down the film can.
These little challenges make prop building much harder than people think.
-Louie
