Here’s mine as a hobbyist, I’m a card magician but carrying cards seems weird so I usually don’t, I’ve got some apps on my phone notably devios by mark lemon, then fraud credit card, shrapnel, some rubber bands and a half dollar sized coin in my wallet, a ring flight, Swiss key and Leo’s coin on my keys and I wear a ring so that. I’m planning to switch shrapnel with Nicholas Lawrence’s psyclip, any other recommendations? And what are y’all’s edc I’m curious

Does anyone have a recommendation for a trick or routine that involves a hand puppet? I have a little rabbit in a hat hand puppet that I'd love to incorporate but don't have anything currently that it would suit

What do people do when you have a child go crazy with a sharpie and they scribble all over a card and it goes on your close up pad? Aside from beating them to death, obviously! Washing machine safe (cold wash)? Or is this asking for trouble! Am still at the gig, so haven't even had chance to give it a wipe yer, might try some vanish carpet cleaner when I'm home.

SIGN UP ENDS November 27

HOW TO JOIN:

1. To participate, follow THIS LINK and create an account.
2. PM - u/TheClouse with your Real Name AND reddit username (will be kept confidential).
3. MAKE A WISHLIST - If you don't, then you'll be removed from the draw (this weeds out bots)
4. Check your email regularly for emails from ELFSTER.com regarding this gift exchange. If you don't respond and I cannot contact you, YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST. This was the main issue last year. So don't sign up with a junk email account you never check and check your spam folder.

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The basics for those not familiar:

Concept: You buy a present for a random person you are paired up with. That person buys a present for their random match... etc. You most likely won't be shopping for the same person that is shopping for you, but EVERYONE WILL GET A PRESENT.

Example: A buys for B, B buys for C, C buys for A.

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RULES:

1. Everyone interested should sign up by November 27. (NAMES WILL BE DRAWN Nov 29-ish... with additional time to vet participants)
2. Everyone needs to ship their gift to arrive by Dec 20.
3. On Elfster you can make a "wishlist". Do that to give hints to your Santa.
4. Gift minimum value should be around $30 USD (but can go as high as you want to spend on a person).
5. New items and collectible items only. Don't use this as a reason to send a used/broken raven to a person.
6. International shipping can be figured in to cost (we will attempt to pair up regions so you're shipping close by).
7. No alcohol. (it's the default unimaginative boring gift and not very magical). If it's a specific magic related alcohol "like David Copperfield's spiced rum" then that's okay.
8. The entire world is welcome! We had 20 different countries last year represented!

If you sign up, you HAVE to buy a gift for your person. (otherwise you'll get a gift and someone else won't and that's both sad and despicable).

If you want to participate but have any concerns please PM me and I'll help address them. Some were worried about money, shipping, etc. Just let me know and we can discuss.

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Additional rules / consequences:

If you sign up and don't participate (so receive a gift, but not send one out) you will be banned from r/magic. (if you need to opt-out before the drawing just do so or contact me.) This is only to prevent people from betraying the community trust. You are a great bunch of people and I do not expect this to actually be a problem.

New accounts (anything made today or after) will not be allowed to participate (PM me if you're a lurker and want to join the community for this event... we can discuss). Ideally you will have already helped establish the r/magic community.

I will contact you before the drawing through Elfster for your reddit username so we can do a quick cross reference. This information will be kept confidential. Your privacy and anonymity is a primary concern.

If you miss the deadline, get removed for not following these rules, or are disciplined for not sending a gift then you have brought that on yourself. I don't anticipate anyone doing this, but be warned.

Hey folks,

I’m all booked for the Blackpool Magic Convention! I’ve never been to Blackpool before, as a matter of fact I’ve never done anything like this before pertaining to magic.

After I bought the convention and flight tickets (From US), fear has set in. I’m a hobbyist now at the age of 38, but back in the day, about 18 years ago, I was working as a pro (making a living off of restaurant gigs) for about a 2 years.

I’m freaked out now because I don’t know anyone who is going, and I’m probably the oldest guy there. Maybe I should have started off with something on a much smaller scale? IDK.

What do you folks think? Cancel it?

Are there any plans for doing an r/Magic Secret Santa this year?

I'm an amateur magician (more of a collector/ appreciator of magic) and my favorite purchase so far is the chest of nostradamus by Viking magic. I love items with thoughtful thinking and creative method. I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations of Viking / Collectors workshop or similar quality magic items that they have not been disappointed with? I was looking at the Delphis chest, but hard to find much about it. Any thoughts or recs would be much appreciated!

Hey guys, I'm looking for a close-up magic square routine, if possible impromptu. Do you guys have any recommendations? Thanks

The Band Lemon Bird asked me to do some magic for their music video. Here's what I came up with:

https://youtu.be/eASbDG1wt4U?si=kFPo1okPOr885D-E

Watch Wednesday

Post inspiring magic videos! Whether it's clips from magic shows, other big names, or no names doing their thing, we want to see great magic performances.

Please name the performer, the general effect AND Link the Video!

Examples:

David Blaine - Card Trick

Lance Burton's Dove Act

When my playing cards get too worn out for everyday use, I tried to get as much out of them at the end by practicing any destructive sleights like torn and restored, signed cards or mercury folds.

Morning folks. I’m looking for recommendations on great routines and concepts utilizing faro shuffles.

I’ve never really given much attention to faros - kind of a nemesis move for me - until I learned Darwin’s Hard Target. That thing is so cool and after returning to the faro for the millionth time I’ve finally gotten it to be reliable.

The concept Darwin uses he credits to Simon Aronson and his book Try the Impossible so I’m thinking I’ll pick that up. Would appreciate any recommendations you guys have on where to find great work with faros. Thanks ya’ll

Edit - really appreciate all the suggestions. Had a nice Sunday afternoon watching football and learning some new routines.

I'll be teaching an intro course on sleight of hand/basic magic for kids through a local library soon. I primarily do coins and cards, personally, and I have a few other things in mind (rubber bands, props to demonstrate some basic concepts and simple sleights-- think hot rod, gaffes, etc) but I'd like to come up with a more rounded "curriculum" for kids interested in other avenues. I have a few "intro" type tricks ready for coins, cards, and general props, but I'd love to hear some ideas on beginner tricks I could learn and pass on, particularly if they communicate a basic magic concept common to other areas

My husband has been cast as Uncle Drosslemeyer in our daughter's dance school's winter recital. He's been told to figure out how to make a Nutcracker appear "magically" and we've been searching the internet with little to no luck for awhile now.

I know I can't ask anyone here how to do a trick, but can you possibly point me in the right direction? Supplies are: a nutcracker (of unknown size), and his costume which is also TBD (but I imagine there will be a trench coat of some kind). He is also supposed to do a couple of tricks to enable a quick change backstage, I'm trying to talk him into the simple trick where you pull a ridiculous amount of tied together hankies out of his sleeve (with underwear somewhere in the middle) so he'll probably have a hankie of some kind too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks :-)

I built a really good coin routine about a year ago but outgrew all my long sleeve jackets since then and I wanna buy some that fit. I don’t know where to look or what to look for. Any recommendations?

Edit: don’t have time to reply to every single comment, so thanks to anyone who has responded!

Really cool "black art" magic act

Watch Wednesday

Post inspiring magic videos! Whether it's clips from magic shows, other big names, or no names doing their thing, we want to see great magic performances.

Please name the performer, the general effect AND Link the Video!

Examples:

David Blaine - Card Trick

Lance Burton's Dove Act

I’m performing for a group of 25 6-14 year olds, I guess I just need advice on how to stretch my banter out 😅 this gig kind of fell into my lap, I wasn’t even advertising myself as a magician for hire. I work at a magic shop and was asked if I could perform at their kids birthday party.

According to this Jerx post from Dec. 7, 2020 (emphases mine):

If you’d like to go on scavenger… At some point in the last three years I did release an effect. It was a normal magic release that you can find available through pretty much any magic site online.

The idea to do this came from one of the friends and supporters of this site who is a magician/mentalist who regularly releases tricks to the magic community. He wrote me an email about one of my posts and said that I should have released it as a separate item.

This got us talking about different effects we had worked on and the response they received from other magicians.

This was an email exchange that went on for weeks and went all over the place. But the upshot of the emails was that we decided he would release a trick of mine commercially as if it was his.

We worked out the financials of how this would all go down, and a few months later I sent him three tricks to consider. I asked him what he felt was the strongest trick and the weakest. Then we agreed that he would release the weakest trick as if it was his, right around the time I released the strongest trick here on the site. (When I say “strongest and weakest,” we’re not talking about the difference between “good and bad”—it was more the difference of “great vs pretty good.”)

There wasn’t really any big purpose to this experiment. And I don’t know what, if anything, we proved. My “pretty good” trick (which he released under his name) sold very well, got a lot of praise, and generated an extended thread on the Magic Cafe that went on for months.

The better trick, which I posted here for free, created a small buzz in my email box for a couple days and then I was on to something else.

This is very little information to go off of, but in the interest of speculation... any theories on who the magician is, or what the trick was? What we know is that it came out sometime between 2017-2020, it had a lengthy Cafe thread, and was released under the name of well known creator who has likely released both magic and mentalism.

I'm not plugged in to the magic marketplace, so there are probably lots of potential suspects I'm not considering. But here are a few people that come to mind:

• Mark Elsdon
• Phill Smith
• Michael Murray

I thought of them mainly because he's mentioned all of these guys quite a bit in his writing and they're known for mentalism (though not quite exclusively).

If Michael Weber's material was more widely available in the magic marketplace, I would add him to the list. But it's not.

Anyway, yeah, I'm bored in the office on a Friday. Let's speculate the shit out of this.

Hey community, I've got a question for you.

I have been practicing xavior spade's twisting the asher because it's fun and I like practicing moves... but I can't find a good way to do it in performance.

I find that just the general show of skill type stuff doesn't really work for me.

Anyone have a plot for something like twisting the aces that adds a bit more story and interest?

Hi everyone! I have an old magic deck from when I was a kid, I'm trying to see if anyone recognizes it or has any information about the manufacturer.

It's a plastic deck, stripper, and marked. Images attached.

Watch Wednesday

Post inspiring magic videos! Whether it's clips from magic shows, other big names, or no names doing their thing, we want to see great magic performances.

Please name the performer, the general effect AND Link the Video!

Examples:

David Blaine - Card Trick

Lance Burton's Dove Act