Hey gang,

I want to pass on a story, a tale of events which happened to a dear friend. His name is Christian Shenk.

Many of you may know him from seeing him at a magic gathering or convention. Others will certainly know Christian from the many products his company Card-Shark has released into the magic community over the years. Even if you have never heard of Christian personally you probably have purchased or at least seen a pack of his famous Phoenix Decks.

In the spirit of Magicians Helping Magicians here is the story as told by Christian himself...



Imagine for a second that a mythological story would turn into reality. Actually, this happened on Saturday night to our German warehouse when our Phoenix went up in flames!

I do not know what exactly happened yet, but I was called in the middle of the night to go to my warehouse and witness the saddest vision in my life as an entrepreneur; my warehouse was engulfed in flames.

The warehouse was attached to a huge industrial hall that was subcontracted to several parties. It seems that the fire started there and quickly reached over to my warehouse as well. I hope that in the next few days I will learn from the fire police the real source; where and why the fire started.

After dealing with the initial shock, my team and I are working hard to recover from the loss that not only included our decks of cards in all variations, but DVDs, packaging material as well as our machines that made all the magic happen to our final products. Other rare and unpublished effects were also stored there and will probably never see the light of the day.

Here are the good news that we gathered:

• Nobody was injured!
  
• Nobody died!
  
• Card-Shark will certainly continue!
  

These are our plans for the upcoming future and you can play a role in it as well:

While the warehouse stored all kinds of originals and raw materials for our effects as well as some important machines for putting the items together; our office/shipping department was not affected as this is based in our house. Finished products are still in stock in Germany. We will need to pause serving dealers for a while as most of their products need to be finished in our warehouse. All the stock of raw material is lost completely. We have a special order page for our dealers, where we will turn off all the items and then, one by one, make them available again.

Our warehouse in the USA stores most of the items for shipment to our North and South American customers. It will come to our rescue as many finished items are stored there as well.

We may have found our new warehouse! Fingers crossed that I will get the contract. It will be bigger and well suited for future expansion. I even think it would have a perfect showroom where we will be able to hold sessions or film projects. Who knows…

We immediately will start reordering all important items so we will be back on track soon, depending on our suppliers.

Let us rise the Phoenix from the ashes as we need your help:

Please support us by placing an order. Even if you are not immediately in need of any items, you can help us by ordering a "Rise from the Ashes“ Silver, Gold or Platinum Voucher.
These can be used for a future order or even at conventions. You will help support us with immediate cash flow; We will thank you with a nice discount and a present on your next purchase with us.

The Phoenix will rise again!

CHRISTIAN 'Card Shark' SHENK

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