Andy Martin

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

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.

Click here for more information.

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″) (this one)
4. Mini Size (7″) with magnetic tips

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.

Click here for more information.

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.

Click here for more information.

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 🙂

Click here for more information.

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.

Click here for more information.

This is U.F. Grant’s wonderful and overlooked Improved Proxy Substitution Chest. The original version released c. 1946 used just a single chest, but an improved version was introduced c. 1966 using two chests.  This is the latter kind.  It doesn’t look very much when you get it but it is a very convincing transposition that is embarrassingly easy to do.  The basic plot is that two items borrowed from the audience, an item from a lady and an item from a man, change places in a very clean manner.

I thought it would it would be perfect for a Batman and Superman ultimate Smackdown contest …

The chests have plenty of cosmetic marks and scratches  but they work perfectly.  If I was to perform this regularly I would probably repaint them in blacks and browns to represent buildings or maybe green and red for Kryptonite, but as they are they work perfectly too.  Of course you don’t have to use Batman and Superman – any two small items under about 6″ would work.

Click here for more information.

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.

Click here for more information.

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!

Click here for more information.