Hi,

I am a fourteen year old, and currently perform stage/manipulation magic (I was recently fortunate enough to get through to the finals of The Young Magician of the Year competition) and am extremely interested in the history of magic.

I have recently become interested in magic collecting, and would like to join The Magic Collectors Association, and start collecting magic items/books.

I think that a good place to start would be some of the old magic magazines (such as The Sphinx, The Phoenix, The Gen, etc.) as they are not too hard to find, and are fascinating to read through.

However, when I look up such magazines, I am unsure as to how many years/issues/volumes they ran for and so I do not know if what I am buying is the complete set.

For example, one shop sells 'Apocalypse Volumes 1-6' but I am unsure if this is the entire run of magazines, and I am unable to find more information on it.

It would be extremely helpful if anyone could contribute towards a comprehensive list of all (or as many as possible!) the magic magazines - past and present - including who's magazine it was, the years it ran for, how many issues/volumes there were, and any other information such as what the magazines consisted of (card magic/tricks/advertisements/etc.).

If anybody can contribute to this post, it would be very much appreciated.

Also, I live in the UK, so perhaps someone could suggest where I am able to buy some of these old magazines. I am aware that many magazines are currently being put onto CD but I would prefer the actual physical object, and I will buy the CD as a companion.

Thanks in advance,

Sam

Try http://www.magicbookshop.com also known as H&R Magic Books. They are pretty reputable and knowledgable about such things. You are right, Apocalypse is 20 years (volumes).

The Phoenix books that were printed by Tannen's go up to issue 300.
I believe the Jinx books came out to 3 volumes up to issue 150.

You can contact David Meyer, the editor of the MCA magazine, at meyerbooks@sbcglobal.net

The subscription/membership fee is only $30 per year, and WELL worth it.

Take a look for "Magic Magazines of the Second Millenium" at the H&R site. It is chock-full of the information you seek on the various old magic magazines.

Also, on a personal note, I do have a complete, bound file of Ellis Stanyon's MAGIC available for sale or trade, if you're interested. Mint condition and bound in three volumes.

Cheers,

Gabe Fajuri

I would also recommend looking at some of digitized magazines. I enjoy the real thing but with so many of them brittle and hard to read; it is a great option.

I just picked up 6 boxes of Genii, Mums, 7 circles, Tops, New Tops, Sphinx, and Linking Ring for next to nothing. No complete volumes but fun to go through. Once I get through with them and see what I want to keep or already have, I will probably sell the rest at good prices just to move them.

Richard

About 8 months ago while living in NYC I was in desperate need of money. I went to a Magic/costume shop in NYC called Adracadabra I sold the owner about 100 old magic/genie/mum magizines. The dates on these issues were from 1950/1975 I got a lot of money for them and I believe he stll might have them. I don't know the contact number but Im sure you can look it up. At first he didn't want to buy them but a little convincing and some acts of desperation helped a little. If you contact the shop and ask for the owner Im sure he will talk to you about maybe selling some of them to you. I have a few left of issues dating from 1970-79 if your interested. These magazines are jam packed full of great magic almost forgotten today. PM for additional ?s.