Obviously lying advertisements

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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby Barry Allen » Mar 18th, '22, 20:03



mark lewis wrote:OK. Here is the truth behind the above ad. Incidentally all the above tricks had been advertised individually for weeks beforehand and I sold a ton of them with the most blatant misrepresenation which I am very proud of.

By way of explanation "Absolutely Out of This World" was a svengali deck with the reds cut short and the blacks left as they were. If you flick half the deck one way they are all black and the other way all red. That was how it worked. I invented it and it was the biggest load of bilge I ever came up with. I sold loads and loads though! Robert Harbin and Silvan did indeed buy it. They must have been gravely disappointed in their purchase!

And to my great delight I have just found one left over from 45 years ago. Amazingly it is as good as new although the box is naturally a little bedraggled. It is new because I never used it and was never sold.

The Cups and Colours trick was simply the little plastic cups and balls. I disguised the title and description so the idiot magicians wouldn't realise what it was. Ali Bongo was daft enough to buy one which was ironic because he was the one who first sold it to me when he worked in a magic shop. I was a teenager at the time.

The cups were egg cups and were indeed made in Holland but I purchased them from the local grocery store. My "factory" was a table in my office.

As was the Vanishing Royal which of course is the Dutch Looper. I used to make 14 out of one regular deck. I would make all 14 in about ten minutes. It was indeed "made to rigorous specifications at our factory on the premises" . I just had to make sure I cut them properly and put the glue on correctly.

As for the Mark Lewis Magic Theatre that was just a room in my office premises. I only got one punter come in. He was an old man with nothing much to do in Blackpool. And of course I shall let you guess who "one of the world's finest card magicians was"!

That is the funniest read for a very, very long time! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Wow that's a blast from the past - Clifford Davis of New Faces critic 'fame'......or as my Father would refer to him, 'the pompous pr!ck'. Lest we forget that here was a man so well-versed in Magic apparently, that he believed Uri Geller to be the real deal.

The word 'Legend' is very much overused within today's society. However, I truly cannot think of a more fitting term for you Mr. Lewis.

Your contributions most certainly bring out the sun on the very greyest and most boring of days. Thank you!

Barry Allen
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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby mark lewis » Mar 19th, '22, 03:41

Alas poor old Clifford Davis didn't seem to think it was funny! I remember he sent me an irritated message saying, "Is this a joke or something? I have asked you to replace the cards on two occasions but you keep sending me decks where the backs of every alternate card are different shades and they show up so badly that anyone can spot them" That was the last straw and I got so fed up with him that I sent him a letter saying, "Try doing the trick in a dim light". For some odd reason I never heard from him again!

There. Now that I have scared everyone off from buying anything from me in the future this example of great wickedness on my part happened around nearly 50 years ago well before I became a psychic reverend and holy man of the cloth. And of course I lived in wicked old Blackpool where honest dealings are quite socially unacceptable. I have now repented of my wickedness and you are far more likely to actually receive your merchandise than you would have been in 1974! Mind you, oddly enough a lot of well known magicians nowadays put stuff up for sale and take the money but never send the merchandise!

In the old days before the internet customers did actually have one recourse if they had complaints about the merchandise or if the stuff wasn't even sent. They could always complain to the magazine where the stuff was advertised. For example Abra would contact the advertiser and intervene in case of complaints and cancel the advertiser if the situation warranted it.

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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby Barry Allen » Mar 20th, '22, 21:27

A superb example of how adverts in magic catalogues can suck you in.

This is a very funny lecture - well worth watching for the entire 16 minute duration:

https://youtu.be/-SpdH0XXVbI

Barry Allen
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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby Old_Codger » Mar 21st, '22, 09:11

Brilliant! Thanks for posting that, Barry. Just superb.

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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby Barry Allen » Apr 5th, '22, 12:51

Old_Codger wrote:Brilliant! Thanks for posting that, Barry. Just superb.

Glad that you enjoyed it.

It's a clip that I seem to stumble across every so often - and it always raises a few laughs. Maybe because we can no doubt associate with it from our younger days of being ripped off.

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Re: Obviously lying advertisements

Postby MrCat » Apr 5th, '22, 15:00

I so need to catch up on this thread, I've skim read but gosh... :D

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