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docguitarman Special user Thousand Oaks, California 888 Posts |
The subject of Vic Lawston and the House of a Thousand Mysteries came up recently. Rekindled my youthful memories and led me to buy a copy of a 1961 Lawston catalog... appears to be exactly the one I had!
So after reading it through again (nearly 60 years later!) I wondered what my set of tricks I had in my magic show would cost today! Here, for our amusement and without further ado is the list (first, after name of the trick, is the price in 1961 found in the "House of a 1000 Mysteries" catalog followed by prices today ... found by representative google search!) A subtitle of this post might be the "Diminishing Dollar" ! Linking Rings 2.50 20.00 Rice bowls 1.00 4.70 Chinese Egg bag 1.00 5.95 billiard balls 0.50 4.00 spirit nut 0.98 7.50 miracle floating ball 3.00 15.00 transparent vanishing silks tube ??? ??? Svengali deck 1.00 3.50 mental photography deck 2.50 8.95 haunted deck 1.50 4.60 electric deck 2.50 5.95 two card Monte 0.50 ? 2.50 three card Monte 0.50 ? 3.50 Repeat Bill mystery or multiplying dollars 1.25 9.00 viz escape 0.50 1.95 tube and ribbon rope escape ??? chain escape 1.00 4.50 vanishing quarter in water 0.25 2.00 card through coaster (fantastic mystery) 1.00 5.95 Thumb Tip 0.50 2.00 hooked coins 0.50 12.00 cups and balls 0.75 3.50 multiplying rabbits 0.50 3.00 penny to dime 0.50 6.95 devils box 0.50 3.50 nickels to dimes 1.00 10.00 card penetration frame 2.50 7.95 silk to egg miracle egg 1.25 3.60 Chinese sticks 1.95 10.00 two color changing silk 3.50 12.50 Jumping Gems/ jamboree jewels 1.00 3.00 Lota water vase 1.50 5.30 color vision cube box 1.00 3.00 upside down glasses 0.50 1.00 wonder blocks 0.65 4.00 enchanted block (cubio) 0.98 6.50 ball and tube 0.50 4.00 finger chopper 1.00 4.50 Chinese secret bottle 0.79 6.00 folding coin 1.00 20.00 magicians egg bag 1.95 10.00 pop bottle trick 0.35 0.75 spirit slates 0.98 9.00 shrinking cards 1.00 17.95 royal magic card box 2.00 5.00 mirror glass 1.50 10.00 circle to square 1.00 8.23 Hindoo color tags 0.50 magic vanisher (pull) 0.50 6.00 Deland automatic deck 1.50 9.95 brainwave deck 1.50 6.50 magic milk pitcher 3.50 17.95 rising wand 1.50 5.00 miracle book test 1.00 card in picture frame multiplying coin tray 0.49 2.73 spring flowers load 1.00 est. 4.50 enchanted card 0.25 (old style flap card with metal wire spring) Magic producto box 3.00 15.00 est. Total $67.37 $370.41 |
daffydoug Eternal Order Look mom! I've got 14077 Posts |
What a trip down memory lane! *sigh*
I often pine for those long gone, golden days of yesteryear! I remember well Lou Tannen's catalog and my first purchase as as Airman serving my country. My first taste of the wonders of the world of magic! Then there was the Mark Wilson Course In Magic... It sure would be nice to be able to turn back the clock.
The difficult must become easy, the easy beautiful and the beautiful magical.
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farmerkarl New user 62 Posts |
If you think about it in 1960 money $1.30 is a hair over 1oz fine silver so the old prices are more then the new prices. Of course the quality of the old tricks is prob way better the the stuff you can buy today.
But whatever it is daffydoug is correct nice trip down memory lane. Thanks |
meridianfan Loyal user 259 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 22, 2018, farmerkarl wrote: The internet prices listed are much cheaper than I think we could find in a conventional B&M shop today. It costs less to operate a website these days than a conventional shop, so some of that savings is passed onto the consumer contributing to the cheaper prices. Also true they don't make things the way they used to, and quality has likely suffered. Great post and thanks for sharing. |
docguitarman Special user Thousand Oaks, California 888 Posts |
Quote:
On Jun 23, 2018, meridianfan wrote: True. Some of beginner tricks I listed typically go for around $5.95 (or more) at a B and M. The comparison I made was a 1960's mail order catalog (Vick Lawston) with today's web prices... should be roughly an apples to apples comparison. Of course my price checking was just a quick search also, so mileage may vary |
daviddelrey New user 75 Posts |
It kills me when I purchase something for a couple hundred bucks at auction or on eBay and it arrives with the very original $2.75 sticker on it.
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meridianfan Loyal user 259 Posts |
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On Jul 28, 2018, Saint-Pol wrote: I know how this feels. I have a few Tenyo items like this- an Ultra Tube with a $3.50 sticker on it! |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Yeah! My first purchase was of a PROP, NOT A TRICK! --'CUZ YA CANNOT BUY TRICKS! --A TRICK, somewhat like MUSIC, only exists while it is being PERFORMED! (If you stop dragging the rosin soaked horse hair, over the catgut strings, the music ceases!)
My first PROP purchase from Percy Abbott, in the spring of 1945, was a Brakawa Fan. It had BRASS "ribs" and SILK RIBBON was the "cover". It was $1.75, and, Percy paid the postage! For a buck seventy five, in those days, you could have a very nice dinner! (sirloin steak, baked potato, vegetable, salad. --and, often, a scoop of ice cream AND coffee or teal!!! That fan, after about 20 years, finally got a new ribbon. I retired it ten years later, when I bought the last five of the Ed Miller fans,in stock, from Jay Marshall. They were lighter (fiber ribs) and as good, or better than Abbott's. I've been using one of Ed's fans, since about the mid '70s. A few years later, I began selling the rest of Ed's fans! (about #10 each!). My fan routine always gets a half dozen LAUGHS, AND APPLAUSE at the finish, and, on two occasions, I received a STANDING OVATION, in high schools! I wrote the routine in my book. That first $1.75 fan, lasted until I learned how to PRESENT it. I think I paid $5,00 each for the Ed Miller fans. I quadrupled my investment, when I sold the Ed Millers! I consider that first $1.75, and the $25.00 for the Millers, an INVESTMENT, that really paid off! Most of the TRICKS in my show came from Doc Tarbell. (The PROPS, except for a Jeff Busby made Mardo Egg Bag, $5.00, like new, at a swap meet, 3 linking rings about $20.00, a big needle, $10.00, a Pom pom stick, $10.00 -used-, a comedy balloon pump, $10.00, a Mutilated Parasol, $25,00, used, and a Disecto, $100.00, used, and, a Stan Payne bunny, that doesn't eat (!!) about $10.00. The rest of the PROPS are generic (silks. rope, cards, bucket for Misers Dream,) etc. Those simple props were my tools to make a good living with for 50 years! (I have never spent money on the "latest and greatest".)
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Mad Jake Inner circle All the voices in my head helped me make 2200 Posts |
My dad's first Bob Kline Swirl It Box from Tannen's Magic was 35.00. He had another he purchased from John Mendoza, which like all of John's items was Pristine, 350.00.
Licensed Steve Dusheck Manufacturer and distributor visit www.airshipmagic.com
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
OH! For those interested.....Ya can't BUY "MAGIC"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MAGIC ONLY EXISTS IN THE MIND(S) OF THE SPECTATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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meridianfan Loyal user 259 Posts |
@Dick- I think you made your point earlier. No need for the CAPS and excessive exclamation points.
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docguitarman Special user Thousand Oaks, California 888 Posts |
Of course, the phrase uses a figure of speech called "synecdoche!" Title is short hand for "Cost of apparatus for producing deceptions in the minds of the beholder!"
BTW, no offense taken by me. |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 31, 2018, meridianfan wrote: So! I'm 87, I don't know how to italicize. Anyhow, THAT'S the way I talk! (!!!)
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 31, 2018, docguitarman wrote: Good response doc! --Only "apparatus" is a very antiquated term from the 1700s!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Quote: heehee I don't know how to make that cartoon face!On Jan 1, 2019, Dick Oslund wrote:
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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martini Special user delta, pennsylvania 548 Posts |
Greetings Doc;
That was a trip down memory lane. Dick, I just wanted to say thank you for writing your excellent book. I have enjoyed every page of it. This is the type of material that our younger generation should be reading instead of trying to do a double undercut single handed butterfly swivel with a rolling caterpillar reversal all in one hand. lol (I'm sure that you understand) With so much vanishing today, keeping history alive in magic is one of the most important things we can all do and I tip my hat to you and encourage anyone who does not have your book, to BUY IT NOW ! My memory lane scares the hell out of me for my Grandsons who are just starting into magic. Back when I was a kid, I worked a paper route and bagged groceries as well as working in my uncles restaurant to save up and buy my first Illusion: Abbott's Temple of Benares in 1971 the price was $275.00 Today Abbott's lists it at $6,000.00 I bought my Chinese Idol in 1972 for $195.00 (my Mother demanded that I use my sister in shows so I had to get something big. Today Abbott's price is $4,000.00 The cost of everything keeps going up, yet for us old guys, the nite clubs are gone, the Poconos and Catskills resorts are finished, now they cater to casino and family vacations, and the only entertainment they seem to have is a D.J. So now we have to think outside the box and look for work in other areas where the compensation is not what it used to be either. Just my thoughts, but read all you can about magic history, it really is the last thing we have to hold onto. & Buy Dick's Book! All the Best Marty |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hey Martini! Thanks for your very kind thoughts! I never thought, as a 16 year old, that, one day, I would write a book that would sell around the world! I wrote it for fellows like yourself, who know that: "Those who don't study history, are "condemned" to repeat it!"
When you wrote your post, I was in the VA Hospital 'fighting" cancer. I wasn't posting much! The 29 radiation treatments were successful. I'm in remission! I'll try to be a contributing member again. I've retired from the road, 10 years ago but, I still do an occasional date (with the same old act!). They still laugh! --And applaud! (I was fortunate to have had GOOD MENTORS!!!) The orders still come in with requests for the book, and the dvd, so I keep the post office folks busy! Your "ENDORSEMENT" helps!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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