talkmagic.co.uk

When I was a kid, I used to be really into magic. I am now 26, and about a week or so ago I decided that I wanted to get back into it for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my 18 month old niece loved the magic tricks I performed for her the other day, and anything I can do to keep her laughing and smiling is ok in my book!

I bought myself a Tiger Black deck from E and Mark Wilson's complete course from Barnes & Noble, and have been practicing handling cards for about a week. I've been picking up stuff with a lot less practice than I thought I would need to get it down, so hopefully that trend will continue.

I'm basically looking to build up an arsenal of close-up tricks that can be performed for my family and for the ladies, should I happen to meet any in my travels... and so I've been looking around online to see who has the best instruction in that kind of magic, and in how I might go about getting started.

Feel free to PM me if you have any suggestions in that area.

Hey @trophy, nice to meet you.
I'm glad your interest in magic has been sparked up again, and I'm glad your niece has a smile on her face because of it!

Mark Wilsons complete course is an excellent resource, that will certainly help you no end. However, if you are really interested in card magic, I would suggest purchasing The Royal Road To Card Magic. or alternatively, (in four volumes and a lot more in depth..but also a lot more expensive) The Card College Series/

Both will really help you, and set you well on your way to becoming affluent in the world of card magic!

If your into coin work, which is a close up favourite around the world, consider purchasing Modern Coin Magic By JB BOBO.
An excellent resource, that just like Royal Road, will get you up to scratch in this magical field.

Finally, another close up favourite, that the basic skill can be aquired quite easily, is spongeball magic. Very cheap to buy, plenty of information in Mark Wilsons Complete Course, and several extremely helpful leaflets available for like £3 /$6

Hope the forum can be of great help, and PM me for any queries.

Hi and welcome to TM, Mark Wilson is a great place to start out. Hope you have fun here and with your magic.

Thanks for the warm welcome! Also, I just realized that I forgot to say where I'm from. Springfield, Missouri. If anybody's around here, let me know and we'll meet up so I can try to learn from you and suck less for having done it!

Also thanks for the book recommendations, I knew about Card College but Barnes & Noble didn't have it... the closest magic shop is in Branson, so I'm thinking about trying there come next weekend.

On a completely unrelated note, I've got a bunch of friends who are nurses that I'd love to scare with a pulse stop trick, so I was thinking of getting Control from T11 when it comes out. Has anybody seen it performed or otherwise know if it would be good enough to fool nurses?

Thanks!

WildCard has already suggested some of the best books for you, either "Royal Road to Card Magic" or the "Card College" series are an excellent starting block that cover the vast majority of the sleights used in most effects.

You might also want to consider some video tutorials as it is often easier to follow what you see on screen that what you read in a book.

Good luck!!!

You might also want to consider some video tutorials as it is often easier to follow what you see on screen that what you read in a book.

Just don't let youtubers try and teach you their shoddy skills! Buy some nice decent LICENSED dvd's.

Wild Card wrote:

You might also want to consider some video tutorials as it is often easier to follow what you see on screen that what you read in a book.

Just don't let youtubers try and teach you their shoddy skills! Buy some nice decent LICENSED dvd's.

Actually I've been watching the demo videos on E and T11 and in most cases I can see how the trick is done by watching the demo. Which is kind of disheartening to me, since I never used to be able to figure a trick out, and I probably won't be able to go back to those days again.

The books mentioned are great books, but along with those, Scarne on cards, The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Huggard, Counts, Cuts, Moves and Subtlties by Jerry Mentzer any of the Self-working Trick books by Karl Fulves. More than enough material for you to digest and much of what you read in these older books are the building blocks of what people believe to be new. Best of luck.
Cheers
Al

Welcome to TM.

Hey man,

Welcome to TM. I know a magician from Springfield who's about the same age as you. PM me.

Hey mate,

I just got hold of a couple of Jay Sankey DVD's. Cost just under £20 each and very nice to learn/improve from. The two that i can recommend are Sleight of hand secrets with coins and Sleight of hand secrets with cards.

Have fun!

Joel

Salt wrote:Hey man,

Welcome to TM. I know a magician from Springfield who's about the same age as you. PM me.

I PM'd.