I’m not going to overload this post with a bunch of cartoony Irish colloquialisms, so I’m just going to cut right to the chase: Art of Play’s Lucky Draw deck of playing cards, which already looks swank in its original red edition, is celebrating Saint Patrick’s day with a limited run of a special green variant.
Green Lucky Draws are available now on https://t.co/f0koVlKkRc while supplies last! – https://t.co/C6gLTVVmg8 pic.twitter.com/l8EXlH64dT
— Art of Play (@artxplay) March 7, 2018
Printed on premium crushed stock and designed in conjunction with Sideshow Press, the Lucky Draw deck features an elegantly minimalist yet familiar design, and are packaged inside a letterpress-printed tuck case. The green coloring mixes well with the standard design, and makes it a festive addition to your collection without being as obvious as the generic shamrock-emblazoned decks you might find at your local drug store.
You can pick up a deck for yourself at Art of Play for $15 at the link here. They’re available now, but will start shipping out on March 9. If you’re interested in snagging one, act fast: they’re only available until March 17 or when stocks run out, whichever comes first.
Christmas means contests, and while Theory11’s is still underway, YouTube news and reviews channel Magic Orthodoxy is giving away over $200 in DVDs, gimmicks, and playing cards within the next 24 hours. Check out the video in the tweet below.
Hey fans of @MurphysMagic @penguinmagic You have less than than 24 hours to WIN FREE MAGIC – over $200 worth of effects and a marked deck of #playingcards https://t.co/72F8HbU5Ic
— Magic Orthodoxy (@MagicOrthodoxy) December 22, 2017
The rules are pretty simple but there are a few steps to complete to ensure that you’ve been entered into the drawing.
First off, make sure you’re subscribed to Magic Orthodoxy’s YouTube channel. Then, go to the YouTube page for the contest video and like it. Listed on that video’s description are a list of other videos that you need to like as well. Once that’s all done, leave a comment on the contest video that you’ve completed the required tasks, and you’re all entered.
Prizes include six opened Sans Minds DVDs with gimmicks, and a brand new deck of playing cards. You’ve only got a few hours left to enter, though—the contest ends December 22, 2017 at 12am Mountain. If you want to win all this gear, best get to clicking.
I’m sure everyone’s got their business and personal holiday parties lined up by now, but can you really call it a “party” without a magician? The British Embassy in Egypt certainly doesn’t think so, and hired Egyptian illusionist Moustapha Berjaoui to headline their little soiree. You can check out a little sample of his performance at this swank holiday celebration thanks to a video uploaded to his personal YouTube channel, embedded above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtPUVnNVcbk
The Masters of Illusion: Christmas Magic special aired the CW on December 1st, but if you missed it, that’s ok—YouTube has you covered. Check out the video embedded above for the full show, including performances by Naathan Phan, Murray SawChuck, Ed Alonzo, and many, many more. You can also watch it via cwtv.com, or on the CW app on your Roku, Apple TV, or gaming console of choice.
Paul Daniels was one of television’s most prolific magicians, and the host of a BBC program called The Paul Daniels Magic Show, which ran from 1979 through 1994. The show featured illusions of all kinds, as well as special segments exposing tricks con artists used. Each year, Daniels would host a Christmas special, many of which have been archived on YouTube. Spend your lazy Sunday watching this one from 1980, which shows Daniels working the crowd with a variety of Christmas-themed magic and his trademark charm.
Hanukkah’s already well underway, but it’s never too late for a holiday greeting from a magican. Jewish illusionist ZeeGee has a card trick that also doubles a Hanukkah blessing for anyone who is observing the holiday over the next few days. Enjoy the video above, and everyone at GeniiOnline wishes you a Happy Hanukkah as well!
If you’re like us, you’re probably up to your eyeballs in playing cards already. But ask yourself this question: do you have any playing cards with adorable fat penguins fishing for fish-like spades with candy cane bait on them? If not, this deck from Art of Play is just for you.
Featuring 52 pieces of original art from Natalia Silvia, the Christmas Deck adds a whimsical holiday touch to your close-up routines or pick-up poker games. It’s printed by the US Playing Card Company, it’s a limited edition, and it’s only $10. You know you want it, and you can snag it from Art of Play.
It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t like magic, but what do you get someone who loves magic? We’ve compiled a few of our favorite gift ideas from some of the most interesting corners of the internet for magic fans of any interest or skill level, whether they know how to do a proper Faro shuffle or simply appreciate the art of illusion. These gifts go beyond your standard grocery store magic kit, offering a bounty of DVDs, books, tricks, playing cards, and much more. Give the gift of magic this holiday season with our suggestions below.
A year subscription to Genii Magazine
Price: $35 for digital only or $58 for print and digital
We admit, we’re a bit biased, but you’d be hardpressed to find a better monthly magazine out there covering magicians and their craft. Each issue is loaded with articles, tricks, interviews, reviews, and so much more, and features columns by some of the greatest magicians who have ever lived. Your subscription doesn’t just get you new content, either; you’ll gain access to over 80 years of back issues, and all digital issues from 2011 onward contain exclusive audio and visual supplements. It’s nearly a century of magic history, right at your fingertips.
Facinatrix Kit
Price: $49.99
Magic kits come in all shapes and sizes and often range wildly in quality. Not wanting to recommend any old box full of plastic, we’ve picked out the Facinatrix Kit from Fantasma Magic. It contains a bunch of tricks—over 200, the box boasts—and many of them the kind you don’t typically find in your run of the mill magic kit, including linking rings, bitten-and-restored cookies, a mirror box, and even a trick to perform with your smartphone. It’s a bit pricier than the average magic kit, but the Fantasma line is the only one endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Magicians, so you know it’s legit. Perfect for kids or kids-at-heart.
How to be a Magician
Price: $29.95-$69
If you’re looking for a magic kit that’s a little less flashy, a little more professional, this is the one to go with. The heart of the set are two DVDs filled with tons of great instruction, ramping up in difficulty from easy, virtually self-working tricks to more difficult, mind-boggling fare. The kit itself is customizable, too—purchase either DVD separately, or combine them and a box of gimmicks to save money on the whole set.
Christmas Stockings
Price: $34.95
Looking for a quick bundle of goodies but aren’t sure what to get? Grab a Christmas stocking from Ellusionist filled to the brim with playing cards, including Black Tiger, Blood Kings V2 (or Black Rounders if sold out), Blue Keepers, Rockets, and Roadhouse. Act fast because once they’re gone, they’re gone, and Ellusionist has already sold out of its Magic Christmas Stocking bundle.
Mystery Box
Price: $9.95 for the deck of cards, or $149.95 for the Lockbox
What’s in the box? Well, they’re playing cards, but each deck is individually wrapped and sealed to give it some added mystique. The Mystery Box deck is designed in conjunction with J.J. Abrams’ production house Bad Robot, with art direction by Abrams and Theory11 CEO Jonathan Bayme. Grab a deck, or spring for the Lockbox, which includes 12 decks of cards inside a handcrafted box made out of 100-year-old reclaimed wood and sealed with an alpha-numeric lock.
Outlaws Vault
Price: $149.99
Sure, you could just hand someone a deck of cards, but why not make them work for it? The Outlaws Vault is a fiendishly challenging puzzle box, built out of Raintree wood and covered in all kinds of mysterious locks and symbols. It’ll take all the logic at your disposal to crack it open, but once you solve it, you’ll be rewarded with two decks of Outlaws playing cards—the original and the crimson variant—as well as a challenge coin to show off how smart you are.
Parapad
Price: $69.95
If the mentalist in your life is looking for an upgrade to their standard impression pad, look no further than Parapad. Its slick design looks classy without appearing obvious, and more importantly, it just works. The $69.95 price tag gives you enough paper to perform this routine over a hundred times, and even includes an instructional video to teach you everything you need to know to perform this trick flawlessly.
Shin Lim Starter Kit
Price: $120 (currently on sale for $99)
Buy it from Shin Lim’s website
Shin Lim’s 52 Shades of Red is a stunning work of magic and performance art, and with this starter kit, you can learn how to do it yourself. The kit includes the full second version of Lim’s signature act, twice as many Shim magnets (each one the thickness of a single playing card), as well as the vanish/reappear trick Gone Deck. Stocks are running low, but if it sells out, don’t worry—version three of 52 Shades of Red is arriving on December 8.
Ultimate Deck
Price: $25
This is perhaps the weirdest, most gorgeously off-kilter deck of playing cards we’ve ever seen at GeniiOnline. Developed in conjunction with Stranger & Stranger, the Ultimate Deck features 54 playing cards, each one featuring wholly unique artwork. The three of spades incorporates a charcoal drawing of a skull into the card; the ace of spades features a drawing of a massive, trimmed hedge with the roots exposed. There’s no other deck of cards quite like this one.
The Magic Misfits
Price: $16.99
The first part in a planned trilogy from actor and magician Neil Patrick Harris, The Magic Misfits isn’t just a whimsical tale of a young runaway illusionist finding adventure with a gang of, well, misfits. It’s also filled with games, secret codes, and even instructions to make and perform your own magic tricks. Perfect for middle graders, but no judgements from us if you decide to sneak in some reading when your kids aren’t looking.
The Maze of Games
Price: $49.95
Another ingenious book combining storytelling and puzzle-solving, The Maze of Games is a massive tome filled with crosswords, riddles, logic puzzles, and of course, mazes. It tells the story of two teenagers living in Victorian England, trapped in a menacing, puzzle-filled labyrinth. Each page of the book has a different conundrum that must be conquered before the kids can continue their journey. What makes The Maze of Games so great is that the writing is approachable for youngsters but the puzzles remain vexing enough to challenge even the most ardent sleuth.
https://store.penny-arcade.com/products/the-maze-of-games-by-mike-selinker
Erdnase Bible
Price: $20
The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase has been one of the foremost authorities on card manipulation for over a century, and it’s old enough that cheap paperback versions of it abound at bookstores and on the internet. Why not give this classic the appreciation it deserves with this special, faux-leather pocket edition from Dan & Dave? It’s called the Erdnase Bible for a reason: it’s printed on thin gilt edged pages, contains line numbers for easy reference, and even features a ribbon for keeping your place.
The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards
Price: $18.00
Jim Steinmeyer is one of the foremost experts on magic history and the craft of illusion design, and his book explores the life and legacy of Howard Thurston—a man who during his time achieved greater heights of fame than Houdini but has since lived in his shadow. A book as much about the history of two great magicians as it is the psychological battle waged between them, The Last Greatest Magician in the World is vital for anyone wanting to learn more about the Golden Age of Magic.
Illusions: The Art of Magic
Price: $49.95
One thing is certain: the Golden Age of Magic from the late 19th to early 20th century had the best posters. The McCord Museum in Quebec compiled hundreds of broadsheets and documents of the era in an exhibit called the Illusions: The Art of Magic. If you weren’t able to make it up to Canada (or simply love old-timey artwork), Abrams Books has reproduced more than 250 illustrations from the full exhibit in a lovely coffee table book.
Kayfabe by Max Maven
Price: $150
Max Maven has been wowing audiences for decades with his brand of mentalism, and now, he’s finally revealing the methods to many of his signature routines. Kayfabe is a four-DVD box set filled with nine hours of videos, with detailed instructions and performance advice, as well as interviews and documentaries about one of magic’s most enduring performers.
Our Magic
Price: $15 ($20 signed)
Our Magic is a documentary made by magicians, for magicians and anyone else who appreciates magic as a serious art form. The two-disc DVD set contains the documentary, filmed over the course of 18 months with conjurers from all over the world, as well as bonus extra features that include interviews cut from the final film. Pick up a signed copy for that extra-special touch.
The Levit Wand
Price: $175 ($200 for custom wands)
There are magic wands and then there are magic wands, and the Levit Wand is definitely the latter. Each signature wand is hand-crafted over two days with blackwood, faux ivory, and cocobolo, or can be custom ordered and fashioned with a variety of high-quality woods and acrylics.
Harry Potter: A History of Magic
Price: £30 (about $40USD)
Buy it now from the British Library
The Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit is in full swing at the British Library, but if you can’t make it to the UK by Christmas, you can do the next best thing and order the official exhibit book instead. Filled with write-ups and images of ancient historical artifacts, as well as concept art and sample manuscripts from J.K. Rowling’s seminal fantasy, Harry Potter: A History of Magic is a perfect gift for Potterheads and magic fans alike. (Sidenote: There is another, very similar edition of this book also curated by the British Library more readily available in the United States called Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic, but it’s about 30 pages shorter and only available in paperback. I have no idea whether that’s because content has been removed or just formatted differently, so buyer beware.)
The Magicians Trilogy Boxed Set
Price: $48
Lev Grossman’s hit fantasy series The Magicians tells the story of Quentin Coldwater, a young genius who discovers that magic is real and Fillory, the magical realm from books he loved as a child, is an actual place. It may take place at a school for magicians, but this is no Harry Potter wannabe; the stakes are very high and nobody’s chugging butterbeer. Grab all three entries in the trilogy in this swanky box set of trade paperbacks (or pick up the hardcover editions here for a little more cash).
Mandrake the Magician: The Hidden Kingdom of Murderers
Price: $49.99
The world’s first comic book hero is having his magical exploits from the 1930s reprinted in a series of wonderful hardcover editions. This one contains Mandrake’s first Sunday story, but there are a variety of other compilations available from different eras of Mandrake’s legacy.
Magic shops are all putting together their own holiday specials and contests, and the one Theory11 is running for the month of December has an added bonus of getting to spin a giant (virtual) wheel.
For every item you purchase from Theory11 until January 1st, you get a token. You can redeem tokens for a chance to spin the big wheel, which is filled with prizes like NPH decks signed by Neil Patrick Harris, a Canon T6i DSLR camera, a private session with Dan White, a free Elite Membership that grants you access to exclusive items and discounts, and many more.
Even if you don’t spend any money, you can still get a free spin on the prize wheel by simply signing up for a Theory11 account and logging in every 24 hours.
For a full list of all the prizes available, as well as additional contest rules, head over to the holiday contest page over at Theory11.
Everyone likes a nice surprise—well, at least as far as Christmas presents are concerned, anyway. Dan & Dave is more than willing to oblige with its Mystery Deck, available now while supplies last.
Each Mystery Deck is wrapped and sealed with wax, and contains one pack of cards chosen at random. The Mystery Deck costs $12, and its contents are guaranteed to retail for at least that much—but if you’re lucky, the deck of cards you find inside could be worth much more. Dan & Dave have been crafting exclusive cards and hunting down out-of-print decks to use for their Mystery Deck, so you could wind up with any sort of unique or rare treasure.
Dan & Dave doesn’t list which decks are potentially a part of the random pool chosen for the Mystery Deck, though a few images down near the bottom of the store page show off a few. We won’t list them here to avoid spoiling the surprise, but we won’t blame you if curiosity gets the better of you.