Practice Sessions: Required Gear

I loved the imagery in the first Harry Potter novel when Harry first learns that he is going off to school to learn magic. Just like when my kids start each school year, Hogwarts students were required to purchase a basic set of magical books and supplies to begin their foray into wizardry; a wand, a cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) and the Standard Book of Spells were amoung the list. If you're just starting out, like I was not all too long ago, it's hard to know what you should purchase as you're basic set of magical apparatus.

If you ask 10 magicians you'll get ten different answers. After much painstaking research, I'm going to present my starting list of magical supplies. Cards and coins are a great place for a hobbyist or amateur to start because the are very visual, they use common items that people are familiar with and will allow you to build a repetoire of impressive effects however breaking the bank.

I wanted to set an initial budget of $30 so that anyone with a job or a few weeks of allowance will be able to get their foot in the door. My prices reflect the "street price" of the item and not the retail price.

Beginning Cards & Coins Supplies under $30

• 2-Pack Bicycle Playing Cards $4
• Coins (At least 6 Kennedy Half Dollars and a couple English Pennies) $5
• Royal Road To Card Magic $10
• Modern Coin Magic $10

This modest set of goodies provides enough material to keep a new mage on a budget busy for a year or more. My preference for learning is through DVDs but for $30 you get hundreds of tricks and sleights. Personally, I'm not yet a big fan of Royal Road. But for ten bucks, it is a tremendous value that is chock full of sleights of hand card magic and tricks. The concept is great; start at the beginning and work your way down the "Royal Road to Card Magic." I read it often but it's not an easy read when you've been spoiled by DVDs that provide a more complete learning process. However a single DVD is going to break the budget here. As far as books go, I really like Bobo's Modern Coin Magic.

Cards & Coins under $100

• One dozen Bicycles Playing Cards $15 (or as many packs as you can get for $15)
• Coins (At least 6 Kennedy Half Dollars and a couple English Pennies) $5
• Born to Perform Card Magic DVD $30
• In the Beginning There Were Coins DVD $30
• Royal Road To Card Magic $10
• Modern Coin Magic $10

If you've got a bigger budget, this school shopping list might be the way to go. This fits in with the my theory of learning magic - DVDs provide a superior learning experience with books to provide an incredible reference and trick library. The Born to Perform Card Magic DVD starts out at square one, how to holdthe deck and goes through the most basic and useful moves. It sums up the coursework with 4 killer routines. The In the Beginning There Were Coins DVD is similar to Born to Perform Card Magic DVD but with coins. The instruction is outstanding and there is enough material to keep a novice busting their knuckles for months.

Cards, Coins and Cups & Balls under $100

• 2-Pack Bicycle Playing Cards $4
• Coins (At least 6 Kennedy Half Dollars and a couple English Pennies) $5
• Royal Road To Card Magic $10
• Modern Coin Magic $10
• Cups and Balls (copper or brass) $15
• Complete Course in Magic with Cups & Balls DVD $38
• Wand $15

The back-to-school shopping list breaks out of the cards and coins. The coins and cards are covered in great detail but adds the age-old cups and balls materials. Everyone wants to learn coins and cards but the Cups and Balls exercise a wider variety of skills that can be the foundation of so many other great forms of magic. Cups and Balls cover almost all of the forms of magic; appearances, vanishes, misdirection, transpositions and teleporations. It also teaches you about piecing together routines builder so that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

I have included the Complete Course in Magic with Cups & Balls DVD. This DVD is taught by Eddy Ray who routinely gets criticized. However this a solid teaching DVD that covers a lot of material for under $40. There may be better DVDs on the subject but this is an outstanding value and fits our budget.

In case you're wondering, the wand is essential in most Cups and Balls routine. The wand is called The Magician's Wand with Brass Tips. It is heavily weighted on the ends which makes it a joy to spin but a pain if you drop it on your foot.

The DVDs mentioned in this blog entry are reviewed elsewhere on this blog.
http://magic-yeti.blogspot.com/2007/12/review-in-beginning-there-were-coins.html
http://magic-yeti.blogspot.com/2008/01/review-born-to-perform-card-magic-with.html
http://magic-yeti.blogspot.com/2007/12/review-complete-course-in-magic-with.html