Penguin UK closed down ages ago didn't it?
I mean it was one of those places I've been buying magic from but now there is the extra p&p charge that I need to pay...
They've got more items but they've raised the price...

Heres the way I understand it.

Rob Stiff, of Magic Makers is still on the board and one of the major share holders.

To me this is a publicity stunt, to save face. I'll believe it when I see it.

I've heard comments that Magic makers has stated no were not making the knock off of John Kennedy's mystery box anymore... Yeah because they had them made by the 1000's in hong kong and there stocked up on them. so they can say were not "making them anymore" ... at least till they run out and they need more. (besides thier cheap knock of falls apart or so I've heard from 5 people)

As for buying the non rip off Items from someone who rips off. You are still supporting the rip offs by supporting those doing them.

I'd prefer a little slower service but given more knowledge and ethics any day.

If I remember right Penguin denied rip offs all along and stated they were in there rights to do so etc... now as soon as its more advantages for them to "go ethical" they say oh were not going to do that anymore... after we sell the rest of the rip offs we have. huh? and were willing to fall for it. I'd rather support someone who's been ethical all along.

Personally I vote with my wallet. By buying from someone who sells knock-offs you support knock-offs period.

This is my opinion and I'm sure that it will ruffle some feathers. It is not my intention to argue, however, I wanted to state my point of view.

Mike Goeller

Just to clear up one thing:

Rob Stiff is not and has never been on the board of Penguin. Rob Stiff is not and has never been an investor/shareholder in Penguin. Penguin Magic has never had any legal/financial ties with Magic Makers.

One of our competitors admitted to me that he started this rumor. They couldn't beat us on price. They couldn't beat us on service. So they started telling everyone we were "one company" with Magic Makers. The rumor spread through the magic community like wildfire. My guess is that this is because so many of the 'nodes' in the magic community 'network' are shop owners who had a competitive interest in believing (and spreading) the rumor.

As Mark Twain observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on."

I have to admit that this was an extremely effective competitive strategy, and one that taught me a lot about marketing/business. We were extremely careful to make sure we had the lowest prices and the best service, but we were less careful about which items we carried. That left us vulnerable to only one kind of competitive attack--the "ethics-based" attack. We never saw it coming.

Maxwell Murphy
Penguin Magic

Steve Fearson is a verrrry smart guy.

Hello Steve,
I'm not privvy to Penguin's situation so I will only speak on behalf of The Astonishment Project. You aren't the first to have heard rumors that simply aren't true. I have heard them myself. So here's the deal, straight from the horse's mouth:

1. The Astonishment Project buys items for the same price as every other dealer. Don't know where or how you came up with the idea that we are getting things at jobber rates. We get items at wholesale. That's all there is to it. To think that Murphy's would put their reputation and entire business on the line to give us a break on price is an insane idea and just plain wrong.

2. We ship all of our own items. In the month that we were in business, Murphy's drop shipped one order for us because there was an emergency and I promised the customer I would get the order out as soon as possible. We lost money on that order because Murphy's charges a fee for drop shipping. Other than that every other order has been shipped out by The Astonishment Project.

3. We don't have our entire catalog discounted at 25%. We did for our grand opening sale. We do have a section of our site called the 250/25. Every day a program selects 250 random items to be discounted at 25%. This is a small portion of the items we carry. The rest of the site is discounted (it's more like 12% for most things), just like most of the major dealers out there. We are trying to stay competitive.

4. Before going into business we decided that the most cost effective way for us to do this was to set up shop close to Murphy's and cut down on our costs. This is not a special privelege that we were given, any other dealer is free to do the same thing.


Hope that clears up any misconceptions you may have had about us.

And all the best of luck to you on your new retail site Steve!

Best,
Jason
The Astonishment Project

It’s time to chime in.

Although I have strong opinions on this subject and, most definitely, am on one side of this fence, I’m going to make a simple, objective point.

My retail, brick and mortar, magic store is less than ten miles from Murphy’s Magic’s warehouse. When Murphy’s first opened Mark treated my company less than fairly and honestly and I chose to stop doing business with them. From that day on, every time Mark would hire a new sales manager, the guy would try to bring my shop, Grand Illusions, back into the Murphy’s fold.

Now, I can’t blame the new sales manager; he doesn’t know the past we had with Murphy’s and it really wouldn’t do any good to tell him about it. I’m not in the business of trash talking so I’d simply say, “We’ve had our differences and chose not to do business together.” They’d persist, I’d politely refuse and they’d eventually give up.

The last and latest sales manager to do this is Jim Rosenbaum, a very good salesman.

My Point: The last offer Jim made to me on behalf of Murphy’s was to connect my website, http://www.grandillusions.com, to the complete Murphy’s inventory. More than six thousand products could be on my site almost immediately and I wouldn’t have to stock any of them; I could pick the (already sold) products up at their warehouse on my way to the post office.

Is this drop-shipping? Not by the Webster’s definition but that’s a technicality. Is this ethical? That’s a matter of your point of view. Is this legal? Oh, yes…Most assuredly. Mr. Fearson, with great respect I must say that there is no law against a wholesale distributor retailing direct. If there was, L & L would have been sued long ago.

Are Penguin and Harris taking unfair advantage of a situation? Well, I really couldn’t say as I’m not privy to that information. I can say definitively, however, that I was offered that very deal only a half a year ago.

Steve Johnson
Grand Illusions

Simply out of curiosity, are there other competing large magic suppliers, or is Murphy's the only one?

Bugjack,

There are five MAJOR magic distributors and a host of smaller ones. Murphy's is the only one to have offered me this "special deal".

- SJ

Ilusnst, did you take them up on the offer?

Edh,

Oh my, no. I chose not to buy from Murphy's years ago and my reasons are still valid.

My mama always said, "A leopard can't change it's spots."

Too true, mama.

- SJ

PS: My choice to "stick to my guns" probably cost me money but I can sleep at night and I can look my kid in the eyes. What price shall we put on these abilities?

I've said worse and was never banned.
I've openly attacked Penguin about their production if rip-off items, gone after site moderators directly (for outright lying to other posters or for abusing their power), and made a big stink about a lot of things - and I haven't been banned.

Are you sure that's all you did?

Steve,

I must say, there are few people in the magic world that I've seen smack their ethics in the face of sooo many people. I don't know how you do it, but keep it up.

I am amazed how many will attack penguin just because it is popular to do so. How can there still be so many rumors about MM and penguin being the same company? Show some evidence if you are going to say something like that. I'm not saying penguin is perfect, but at least get some facts straight.

BTW, I read on this forum someone criticizing MM for releasing a Royal Road dvd when Paul Wilson had just released one. It is a ripoff but I don't think anyone can claim that Paul has the exclusive rights to one of the oldest card magic books that is still commonly read! Is it an inferior product? I'm sure. It is just competition, and should actually be encouraged. I think the MM royal road and modern coin magic projects showed some of the highest ethics MM has had in years. This is old material that is essentially magical public domain at this point. Even if those DVDs don't have the greatest production in them, I still think it wrong to criticize them for it.

I actually came on and did a search for Penguin, because I am a first time customer, I made a reasonably hefty purchase but got no confirmation whatsover that the money had been received. Ive sent emails but have had no response either.

I wondered if they were out of business and so my search led me to this thread.

Does anyone know what the go is? If some here knows the Penguin people can you give them a push towards returning my emails.

Many thanks
Billy

I think that the current copyright holders would disagree with you on this matter, but, hey! as long as people keep making money, right?

I ordered from Penguin on Sunday night and the item was in my New York City mailbox on Thursday. And that's with free shipping. So yes, they are still around.

It's been my experience that they are not great answering emails, but their phone support is fine. (They also don't email an order confirmation, which is weird.) Call them up, have your order number, and they'll tell you what day your order shipped.

If you need to get them, definitely call. They are often late on emails for some odd reason. All in all, though, I've gotten great customer service from them.

Actually, the copyright on Royal Road to Card Magic, Modern Coin Magic and a number of other books that have recently been interpreted on DVD have all expired. Modern Coin Magic went into the public domain because Jay Marshall forgot to renew the copyright on it when it expired, and instead renewed the copyright on The New Modern Coin Magic which is, legally speaking, a different book. A good rule of thumb on these books is to check to see what Dover has issued. If it's not one of the newer Karl Fulves tomes, it has been thoroughly researched by their legal staff and found to be in the public domain.

They very seldom miss on these things.

There is an off chance that the Royal Road might go back into copyright under the restoration of copyright act, but that is very doubtful.

It looks to me like "Jay Noblezada's Five and One Transpo" is really George Hample's "Beswitched." I tried to contact Penguin about making good on their new image and promise and have received no response to multiple emails. George is a great magician and a great person. Perhaps Penguin could properly title it, "Jay Noblezada poorly performs George Hample's 'Beswitched' and charges $10 for an instant download without permission from the creator." At least they would be honest.