I've been searching everywhere on this forum for the right place to post this question. I hope this area is suitable. If not it can be put in its proper place, I guess.

My top first 10 bought tricks were:
Nickles to Dimes (a very magical effect for me),

T.T. with silk

A matchbox being placed on a penny only to penetrate into the matchbox with a dime now under the matchbox.

A really nice $30 Adam's magic set, with a plastic penetration frame, vase floating on a rope (Prayer Vase), (the vase was a ceramic material and not plastic either), Siberian chain escape, disappearing drawer box, a plastic multiplying coin tray, some trick with two film-like canisters and a dice, sponge rabbits, a couple of paddle effects, and egg and vase trick, a plastic screw-type bill tube, and a couple of other things I can't think of at the present moment. (I count this as one purchase.)

Hot Rod

Professor's Nightmare

Mental Photography Deck

Scotch and Soda

A plastic version of Solid Brass Phantom Block Mystery

Coin Con (actually was my very, very first trick I got from a trade from my younger brother.)
Well anyway maybe that's more than 10 but I counted the magic set as one. I just thought this might be a good thread to look back at our first magical purchases the tricks that got us where we are today, and tricks we perhaps still use to this day, (I know I still do a couple from that list). I'm curious as to what other members here started out as their first bought tricks. I can't wait to here from you all.

Ed, (Eddini)

Disappearing Penny, Nickles to Dimes, Svengali Deck, all of Marshall's magic sets, cups and balls.

Nickels to Dimes
Svengali Deck
Color Vision
Spooky Spots
Color Changing Knives

Mental Photography
Scotch/Soda
Coin Squeeze
ID
Svengali Deck
Color Monte
Copper/Silver Coin
Die Through Mirror
Skinner's Ultimate Monte
Super Sight by Magicmakers

My favorites being Super Sight and Mental Photography at the time because they can be instantly repeated.

All the best,
DaveM

As a 12-year-old kid:

• TT and Silk (stayed on good with a ball of tape on my thumb)
  
• Scotch and Soda (turning coin magic on its ear)
  
• Dime and Penny (take it again)
  
• Stripper Deck (I was going to make my mark with this)
  
• Svengali (nice way to drop all the same cards)
  
• Small 50's era magic set (second-hand, and missing the instructions and important parts)

Seven years ago as an adult starting fresh...DOH!:

• TT and Silk
  
• scotch and Soda
  
• Dime and Penny
  
• Stripper Deck
  
• Svengali

I had the Marshall Brodein set at first with all the usuals. I then got some magic sets with like three tricks from the dollar store when I used to go to Florida. Then I started buying single tricks. I still have all of them but they are in my drawer of old tricks that I don't use but I will never give them away because I know they were my starting ground for my favorite hobby and occupation today. Some of the tricks I can think of now are as follows:

1. Chinese Sticks
   
2. Zig Zag Card
   
3. Color Changing Rope
   
4. Nickels to Dimes
   
5. Some King Tut trick where you put him in a tomb but then the spectator couldn't
   
6. All the Marshall trick decks
   
7. The thing with two compartments where you have a cube and it disappears from the box and you move the thing side to side and you act like you're moving the cube from one compartment to the other
   
8. All the MagicWorks tricks
   
9. Buddha Money Mystery
   
10. The Imp Bottle, what a classic
    
11. Future Fungus
    
12. Coin Con
    
13. Multiplying Coin Tray
    
14. Sponge Ball to Square
    
15. Lollipop Trick
    
16. Adams brand Lota Cup
    
17. Trick where their coin is in nest of boxes
    
18. Svengali deck
    
19. Cheek to Cheek deck
    
20. Floating Bill

Sorry I listed so many, haha.

Sincerely,
TJ

I was very interested in sleight of hand from the beginning, but I did buy a few "beginner tricks" when I first started:

• Invisible deck
  
• Stripper deck
  
• Sponge Ball to Square
  
• Svengali deck
  
• Ball and Vase
  
• Floating Match (a match floats over a card)

And I still use a few of these things (I've even been toying with the Ball and Vase lately.)

The First 10 Tricks that I purchased were:

• Svengali Deck
  
• Scotch and Soda
  
• Steel Tube and Ball
  
• Nickels to Dimes
  
• TT and Silk
  
• Pen Thru Dollar
  
• Stripper Deck
  
• Rising Card Deck
  
• Hopping Halves
  
• Floating Match

It's funny how I was 11 when I bought this stuff, and now that I'm 19 I still use the coin stuff. I think it's interesting that we bought all this stuff and practiced the routine we were given and the more we advanced we start to make our own routines and effects. (If that makes any sense.)

-Bill

I got into Magic at the age of 10 (1961):

1. Cups and Balls (the plastic cups with pom-poms)
   
2. A paddle (liked it so much I went back and bought several other paddles)
   
3. Svengali Deck
   
4. Mental Photography Deck
   
5. Sucker Die Box (made better than most I see today)
   
6. Stripper Deck
   
7. Hocus-Pocus Magic Set (Christmas present)
   
8. Wand Through Balloon
   
9. Crazy Cube
   
10. Color Changing Silk

Also checked out every book on magic that I could find in the school and public libraries. Those days were truly magical and while writing this list, I can sense some of the feelings that I had in those days of my youthful past. Thanks for this thread.

Iven

Snappers
Cups and Balls
Color Vision
Ball and Vase
Svengali Deck
Magic Rattle Bars
Multiplying Balls
Double Impact, broke then lost this one and still looking for it...

Thinking back, my first trip to a magic shop I got:

A TT and dye tube and a couple of silks
An Invisible Deck
Royal Road to Card Magic
And "Color Deception Brass" chips - not sure why I bought this, as it was expensive and way too "proppy" but it looked so pretty when the pitchman did it. I guess I couldn't resist.

Svengali Deck, TT with Silk, some routines from sleightofhandmagic.com (Oil and Water, Ace Assembly, King's and 4's, pocket interchange, Mystery Card) Raven Two Card Monte with a gaffed card.

My first trick was Metamorphosis... just kidding.

The old rabbit in the hat paddle
A marked deck
Finger chopper
Drum tube...that really dates me!
Milk Pitcher
Invisible Deck
Sponge Balls

As you can see there was no theme.

Wow! Invisible Decks?!?! Skinner Monte?!?!? What magic dealer was selling these tricks to five-year-olds?!!

For me it was the Silk to Egg from my local novelty shop.

Good question Nicholas, I think that I started with the Svengali Deck, a TT and Silk, the Rabbit in the Hat Paddle, and an Adam's Magic Set.

I was out of magic for sometime and when I got back into magic (in my twenties) Scotch and Soda, sponge balls, Super Sight, Disk Escape and lots of books and videos!

I bought my first magic tricks from a vendor at a fair, I got Nickels to Dimes, Professor's Nightmare, Hyrum the Haunted Handkerchief, Penetrating Coin, and the Svengali Deck.

Wow! You brought me back a few years!

At 15, I visited the Flosso-Hornmann magic shop in NYC, and a little round man with half-glasses (as I remember), sold me my first magic trick, the cups & balls. That old dusty shop looked like a magic junkyard, and I spent more than an hour watching him and his assistant (his son, I think) demonstrate the most astounding things!

I still have those cups & balls, plus:

Vampire Block (the original)
Nickels to Dimes
Steel Ball & Tube
Coin in Nest of Boxes
Chinese Sticks
Multiplying Billiard Balls (wooden, from Germany)
Jack Miller's Hold-Out
An original Rice's Palmo Ball (dye tube)
An original set of Goshman sponge balls

That's what started me off, so many years ago. All of the above are stored in a special place that I look through from time to time.

Thanks all! You brought me back to "that place", a simpler time, when life wasn't so complicated... I think we all need to "go there" from time to time.

Good for the soul...

Thanks!
Doug

My dad showed me the first trick I can remember and it was the one that catapulted my interest. It is commonly referred to as Find the Hole. A coin penetrates a square of rubber that has been held in place by a rubber band around the mouth of a glass. Awesome trick and still one of my favorites. I always remember my dad's excitement in showing me how this worked.

Marshall Brodein's TV Magic Kit was probably my next magical exposure. My dad also started taking me to the M&M Magic Emporium in Forest Park, GA, where I spent untold amounts of his hard earned money. :o)

Cup and Balls
Scotch and Soda
Dime and Penny
Color Monte
Svengali deck

The first effect I bought was a U.F. Grant Rope and Bottle Suspension. I bought it when I was five years old, which was 41 years ago, and I still have it!!!

Other early effects I bought include Penny Block, Coin Fan, Wonder Clock (which is back on the market now after being off the market for a very long time), and Blinkety Blank (a card effect).

It's amazing that I can remember all of this stuff, particularly in light of the fact that I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning!

Regards, Larry D.