Recently a friend of mine told me that his granddaughter was getting interested in magic.

He asked if I knew of any tricks that were available for a young budding new magician.

Since magic is one of my hobbies, I knew a pretty good amount of some of the self-working tricks and a few that need minimal setup.

The cool thing is that tricks I'll mention are inexpensive and almost anyone can perform them. Magic can also help kiddos get over shyness, make new friends, help with hand coordination and build confidence, so that's an added bonus.

Here a four that you can check out to get your budding magician on the road to magic.

But, before we get into the list, here are a couple things you might like to know.

* Most card decks give you the option of ordering a red or blue back deck and you can choose your brand of deck.

* Some of the brands out there include; Bicycle, Hoyle, Bee and two of my new favorites, Arcane and Tally-Ho.

I have included only the performance videos, but the 'how-to' videos our out there too.

The best advice I can give any budding young magician is 'It's all about the performance.' The more you 'sell it' to your audience the more 'buy in' you'll get in return.

Now, on with the show.


A Svengali Deck -

This is probably one of the most famous decks. You'd be amazed how many magicians cut their teeth on this one.

After showing a 'normal' deck of cards, the spectator randomly chooses one. Then, with a snap of the fingers, the deck 'magically' turns into nothing but the selected card.


Stripper Deck -

Spectator picks a random card, it is put back in the deck. The deck is then cut, shuffled and cut again. Magically, the magician locates your card.


Invisible Deck -

This trick starts WITHOUT a deck of cards. Spectator is asked to think of a card, any card. Without skipping a beat, the magician pulls out a deck of cards to reveal that only ONE card is face down in the deck. It's the thought of card.


Mental Photography Deck -

I have to admit, this is my favorite out of the list.

Magician shows a deck of cards that are completely blank. They ask spectator to pick a card and then it's discovered to be the only printed card in deck. To add even a stronger punch, the magician shows that, in fact, the whole deck now is magically back to normal. But don't blink. Now they're all blank again. (Very cool, very easy and will amaze everyone).


I'm kinda bummed that we don't have any full-time magic shops in Amarillo, but there are lots of places on the web that you can check out. At one point, The Costume Castle had a very small selection of stuff in the front display counter, but I can't remember what items they had. I used to purchase my stuff out of San Diego and Boston, but sadly both places are now closed. My favorite spot to shop for magic now is Ellusionist. They also make their own brand of designed cards that are pretty cool.

I only mention Ellusionist because I've bought from them and they are an upstanding company. Some of their custom decks run a little higher than other places, but I've never had any problems with them.

Here is where you can find most of the decks that I mentioned.

 

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