On a leap of faith I bought a box of vintage magic tricks for $25 while I was in California. I didn’t really know what was going to be inside of it, but I figured it was worth the gamble. Here’s what was in it:
There wasn’t one thing that totally blew me away. The box was definitely worth more than the $25 I paid for it, but not a crazy score.
I’m lucky that I was able to fit everything into my suitcase. A couple of the things are going to move to my shelf!
-Louie
The other day, I started playing with Tommy Wonder’s Card in Ring Box. This prop is detailed in Tommy Wonder’s book The Books of Wonder. The effect is pretty straightforward, it’s a signed card to ring box. What makes it cool is that the audience sees the card drop out of the ring box.
Before I give my review of this, I should mention that I didn’t pay for it. I don’t know if that really affects how I feel about this, but figured I should mention that.
I took it out and gave it a try at the fair I’m performing out, here’s a peek at it in action:
@louiefoxx The Card In Ringbox is a vintage Tommy Wonder magic trick idea! #cardtrick #magictrick #magic #tommywonder #jmcraft ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
The box looks great, and the measurements are what is in the Books of Wonder. I really like it, and I think it works great for doing a card under a box, then ending with the folded card in the ring box.
My only issue with the box is how the card is attached to the box. In the Tommy Wonder Books of Wonder, there’s a loop of thread that you slip the card into. In the JM Craft magic’s version of it, the card is permanently attached to the box.
This doesn’t sound like a big deal…until you are in a situation where you have a blue deck and the gimmick is red!
At the gig I’m at, I took a brick of Bicycle Cards, which are 6 red and 6 blue. I go through a deck each roving set. That means that on my 7th roving set, I couldn’t do the trick.
Not being able to easily change the gimmick is an issue for me. Sure, I can pack only red decks, since I buy my decks by the brick, which means that I can’t do the trick in half of my shows.
If the gimmick color is an issue for you, like all your gimmicks or whatever are one color, make sure the gimmick matches that! Other than the change from how the card attaches to the box being different from what’s in the book, the JM Craft version of Tommy Wonder’s Card in Ring Box works great!
-Louie
I have a knack for creating magic tricks with a prop that is an everyday object, but the specific version of that everyday object that I need is the least common version of it!
My Film Can Dice Force is a good example of this. It uses a normal film can, it’s the one with a black can and a grey lid. This one is the minority of film cans that are out there right now.
I needed more of them, and it took a lot of work to find enough of them locally to fill orders! I do have a bunch coming from eBay, but that shipment got delayed, and I didn’t want people to wait for their orders.
All orders for this trick have shipped thanks to a couple of vintage camera repair shops that also still develop film in-house!
One thing I really believe in is developing relationships with the places that I source the components for my tricks. When they know me and know what I’m using the stuff for, it makes them much more willing to help me with weird requests than a website where I’m just a number.
-Louie
The idea of using a Nest of Envelopes as a running gag with a magical payoff is taking shape. In the first version of the trick, the magic trick was going to be card prediction. Playing cards are uniquely grouped to allow several choices of groups to get to a single card that nothing else I could think of can. Ideally, this trick wouldn’t be a card trick, but it’s looking like it will.
When I first came up with the idea, as a placeholder for the trick, I used an invisible deck. The goal is to have something more original or less common than an invisible deck. Also, the invisible deck is less punchy of a reveal. It takes time and steps to get to the reveal.
What I want is a single card in the envelope. That’s it, the card is chosen (in 3-4 steps), the last envelope is opened, and that’s the card in the envelope! I didn’t have a method, but with the re-release of Phil Goldstein’s trick Shinkansen, that jogged my memory.
A few years ago I made a vintage magic trick video of that trick:
@louiefoxx Is a magic trick from 2002 vintage? #vintage #magictrick #cardtrick #shinkansen #magic #packettrick #cardsacross #maxmaven #wow #louiefoxx #philgoldstein ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
I also made a jumbo version of the trick and did it onstage as a filler piece. Part of the method of the Shinkansen led me to the method I’m going to start to use to do the prediction in Nest of Envelopes!
If you’re a magic creator, this is why having a broad knowledge of magic tricks and methods is a huge help! Part of the method for cards across got me closer to my vision for a playing card prediction!
-Louie
Last week I was performing at a fair, and a couple days into the run, I walked to my stage like I do everyday and this was my view from the stage!
The previous days I had rows of chairs, but this day I had a wrestling ring!
If I asked this on a social media magician’s group, people would say “put it in your contract that people are seated in rows” or something like that. That’s easy to say, but in reality, it’s not that simple. I’ve already got a couple of days of work into this gig and a couple more to go. That wrestling ring isn’t going to move for me. All the people who say it violates the contract (if written), what are they doing to do, walk away from the gig. If you do that, they’re not going to just hand you a check; you’re going to have to fight to get paid if you walk away.
What would you do in this situation?
I simply converted my stage show into a hybrid street/close up magic show.
This worked great, and this is why I always think that if you do stage magic, you should be able to do close up magic as well. Sometimes it just works better to do some card tricks!
I’ve done many shows with stages and situations that varied a lot, I can adapt to pretty much any situation.
-Louie
Here’s how I handled another difficult stage.
There are magic props that look like they were created to make a trick work, and don’t exist in real life. The TV Card Frame magic trick where a card appears between two pieces of glass is one of those tricks.
Recently at a junk shop I saw a picture frame that I’m guessing is what the TV Card Frame is trying to look like:
I’m always amazed that these things that look strange to me, but were created long before I was born, were designed to sort of look like things that existed in real life back then.
I wonder what props that look like everyday items now won’t look like anything people will have interact 40 years from now?
-Louie
When I was a teenager, I lived outside of Minneapolis, MN. There were two main magic shops in the area: Eagle Magic in downtown and Twin Cities Magic and Costume in Saint Paul. There was also a Magic Max, which was a chain of pitch shops and a store called The Fun Shop, which was a novelty store that had a magic counter.
When I was a teenager, I primarily went to Eagle Magic, which is run by Larry Kahlow. Larry’s shop was very old school; people smoked in the shop, and there was a ton of props everywhere. The main reason was that the shop was easy to get to by bus! Sadly, this trip, I didn’t get to visit Larry at Eagle Magic.
I had completely forgotten about Twin Cities Magic and Costume. I was running some errands with my mom who lives in Saint Paul and drove by it!
This was a different location than it was at when I was a kid, but I swung by on my way out of town.
I really didn’t know Jim and Fred when I was a kid, but it was great chatting with Jim! He’s super knowledgeable and they have a great selection of magic there! I picked up a few older magic tricks for my collection!
I’m glad I stopped by and if you’re in the Twin Cities be sure to visit Twin Cities Magic and Costume and drive down to Eagle Magic as well!
-Louie
Well, tomorrow is the first show of my new school assembly show and the first show day of this month long tour! The show is designed to set up and strike really quickly, in less than 15 minutes. The show will run 40-45 minutes in length and will have to play for 150-500 people per show.
Here’s the front of the case:
I have a screen on the front of the case for visuals if the school doesn’t read my requirements list and doesn’t provide me with a projector or TV. The visuals aren’t necessary, but they help make the show feel bigger.
Here’s the view of the back of the case:
The props in the case are laid out for the show. The only thing missing from the picture is my snake box, because it’s not in the case during the show. The snake box sits on a table (provided by the school) during the show.
I’m very excited to see how this plays. This show is 95% new to me. The 5% that’s old are a couple of jokes/gags that I’m recycling. Hopefully, I won’t have to change much. When I was writing the show, I was worried that it wouldn’t be long enough. Now that I’ve been practicing it, I’m worried it will be too long! Having too much material is a way better problem to have than not enough.
-Louie
In the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost there’s cool trick called Double Pinochle with an Elevator Finish. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:
It’s a nice change of four cards. What I don’t like about it is that it’s themed with the game of Pinochle, which isn’t as common as it was in the past.
Here’s what I came up with to update it:
The first change I made was for it to use four jokes, instead of two queens and two jokers. Then I used my Elmsley For Video move that allows you to show all four kings when you do the Elmsley Count and not have to show one card twice. Then procedurally, I needed to add a displacement so that I could get a clean display at the end, so I did a weird sort of top change off the bottom of the packet to the top of the deck.
Hope you like my changes
-Louie
Yesterday I visited with Doug Conn on TrickSupply.com‘s live stream! You can watch it here:
It was a lot of fun to chat with Doug Conn about the Portland Magic Jam and what I’m up to!
-Louie
