I was shocked to find a Houdini brand Dice Bomb at Target today for $.99. (It was on sale). It looks exactly like the older versions that I have seen selling for $10-$20. I seriously don't see how they can make a profit on these things at one or two bucks.

Could someone enlighten me on the history of this effect?

Just to make sure that we are referring to the same thing, the "Dice Bomb" I'm familiar with was one in which a large die turned into a number of very small dice.

As far as I know, it's one of those tricks that originated somewhere in Asia, as part of a run by a company that specialized in entry level magic tricks that require no skill to speak of. It was never intended to be anything more than a "magic set" type trick.

The Houdini brand could be anyone's. Geno Munari markets a line like that, but I don't think his material shows up at Target. There have been other companies that used the name Houdini as part of their brand name as well.

This could have been part of an overrun. Making injection molded plastic magic tricks requires fairly large runs of product to justify the cost of the molds, etc.

Once the company has sold the entire run to its jobbers, then they have made their profit. The rest is up to the wholesalers.

In a way, this is like the tricks you see at the Dollar Store. The profit was made long before they got to the stage of being Dollar Store tricks.

Yes, Bill it is the same trick. And thanks for your response. I'm just still shocked at the price, given the amount of plastic, the metal die, the mag, packaging, etc.

I will say that whoever came up with this is clever - its a very visual and fairly deceptive trick that any layperson can do immediately.

On a side note- when I worked in a magic shop and used to sell these I would also sometimes steal out the gimmick with my thumb while showing them the dice inside and then the dang thing was examinable!

Dice bomb was invented by Sawa (Yes that Sawa) in the late 1970's If I'm not mistaken it was first marketed by Tenyo or Tricks? Company in Japan.

TRICKS! WEe wols the heck out of them at Tannenes in the early 1908's, how about a gross a month! Demonstrators (he had 6 of them!) loved it, easy reset and extremely visual (easy sell), and at the end they can examine the whole thing! And, beautiful packaging!

We got $15.00 retail and wholesaled them 40% off to our wholesale buyers

In the final analysis, it's no different from any other game, electronic device or other doo-dad that gets remaindered out. If you think this is a low price, remember, Target buys them from a jobber. The jobber probably pays about 25 cents for them.

The whole thing happens when you have a factory or an intermediary that is located in an area where they have to pay tax on remaining inventory or where they need to "adjust" their sales figures for a better tax position.