Oddysey 2- the magic manufacturer
The magical mystery tour continues. One day, while playing with
some dental dam, my 5 year old daughter found a busted needle
thru balloon, and said daddy, put the quarter through this. She
saw it as a piece of rubber, I saw the possibility of creating a
more dimensional way to do the Dam trick. Coin balloon-acy was
born, although the "dam" technique could be used on the latex,
blowing up the balloon required a technique that had never been
tried. But, I worked it out and I showcased it at a Bob Little
convention in Hatboro, Pa.. Bob was farely liberal in letting me
in to his booth. I told him I had this new effect, and would
share the cash, if he let me demo it. I showed the effect and
sold about 30 pieces. I stood up on his table, and kept showing
it and showing it. Of course, I caught the eye of Ed Mishel who
just happened to do the reviews for Genii magazine. He took me
aside, and told me he was giving my little effect 4 stars. He
also told me he would call it Coin-Balloon-acy. Who was I to
argue with this legend; Mishel became a mentor after that, more
on him later. Even before Genii hit the stands, I sold thousands
to suppliers, and then Genii magazine had the glowing review.
This was a newfound success for me and I needed a follow up.
I emptied my brain and came up with some pretty off the wall
magical effects. Not only because I was clever, but, because my
mom got stuck with merchandise and we had to unload it somewhere.
The approach to creativity had to do with supply, demand, and
onhand. No one needs to make a better mouse trap unless you have
a mouse problem. My problem was, my Mom. Mom would buy at
industrial auctions, fabric, bric-a-brac, army surplus, head shop
supplies, and entire stores full of absolutely nothing anyone
would want. So, I made the junk into tricks.
It was the late 70's. Alongside of the magic, we had a variety
store. Fabric, art supplies, even a head shop. Then there were
the closeouts. Creative juices flowed.
I had bought a box of 500 special spring clips from our art
supplier, Fuji art from Japan. Kind of like bull dog clips, but
with a different construction. After careful study of this I
found that match strikers would insert into or rather around this
clip, I added a pin and placed a match into it. I pulled the
match out and with a loud snap, the match lit up. There was NO
gimmick like this anywhere. Sure there were match pulls from
Italy, and homemade deals but this gimmick worked 100 times in a
row without a miss. I called it dependelite and introduced it at
the New jersey magicale.
Maybe the climate of magic was different back then, but I showed
the effect and within a few minutes had an unprecedented line of
buyers in front of my booth. This item was so cool (or hot) that
I ran out of strikers, pins matches and packages, and the
magicians payed me the $2 for just the clip and instructions. I
sold all 500 in about 2 hours.
I contacted all the major distributors and unlike any other
business in the world, I went from concept to delivery in less
than a week. Each dealer took several gross each, and re-ordered
monthly for several years. . Of course, the fact that lance
Burton used 6 of them live on the tonight show gave the item a
little strength in the stores. Even Copperfield used them on one
of his specials. I still sell them today.
Another great effect that stemmed from the "overstocks", was an
item I marketed as Universal Utility Clip. Mom had some vinyl
coin purses, thousands of them. After a quick study of the
mechanism, the purse had a sping clip which held objects in place
at any angle. I cut off the purse pouch, and added some pins at
the hinges, and took them to the Tannens jubilee, held about 30
minutes from our shop. I didn't have a booth, but, good old Bob
Little did, so I dropped off a little display that held 12 pieces
at his booth. As each display would sell out, I refilled it. I
sold all 50 dozen displays within the one convention. It was the
single best seller that Bob had on display. Once again, I called
up the suppliers and they all wanted some. My biggest problem was
getting more. I had a close-out, limited supply, and it tooks
weeks to track down a good source for them. The lesson was, don't
create an item if you can't get more.
Other four star effects would follow. We had 5000 ugly ties and I
made an effect called Blendo Tie. I had several cases of pepsi
salt shakers (from a head shop "bong" maker.) That item was my
best seller for years, called Pepsilkola. Discarded keys from our
closeout key making business became Disc-Go Dime.
When I ran out of closeouts, I would travel to the Javetts
merchandise show in NY and try to find odd items that could be
used in magic. One time, I met Steve Dushek, and Bob Little at
the show. It seems that some of their creative items stemmed from
going to the merchandise shows as well. We almost had a contest
to see who could come up with the most effects from the show.
None of us ever duplicated anything, but there was a lot of new
effects that year. Other "inventors" went to the shows as well.
Petrick and Mia, Tony Spina, even Jeff Stuart. I remember Jeff
and I had the same item at the Tannens camp where we lectured. I
had "can wrappers", fake cola can wrappers that people would wrap
around their beer cans. My effect was to make passe passe cans,
and vanishing cans in a wad of paper. Jeff's effect was more
clever, he actually developed the vanishing can with a spring
inside and created the crushing can effect. I kicked myself for
not thinking of that one, cause I had the labels.
I met and conversed with all of the "gimmick guy"s back then, it
was a contest to see who would find the next "wunderbar".
Next time... The convention circuit
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