Consider your silks an investment. Their value just went up hiding in the magic drawer. If you bought $.29 real silks in 1960 or $1.50 real silks in 1980, they are worth about $5.50 - $6.50 now!

The US dollar keeps falling and will buy less and less in China. In a few days we will know the new prices. The last shipment at old prices has been made. The last price jump was about 20% across the board.

(Cheap prices of cards may explain why there are so many card magic guys! LOL)

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Bob,

I guess it's like gas, I don't care how much it is, I'm still going to buy it.

David

P.S.

Let someone know the next time you are in Nashville. I think there is a restaurant with our name on it.

David

David,

That is a fact about the South. There are NO bad cooks!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Oh yes, there are... but most of them moved here from somewhere else!

;)
.

Heck, I have over a grand (maybe two) invested in Rice silks. Most of them were bought directly from Harold back in the day so that is a grand in 1960's money. Many are over 40 years old and look as beautiful as the day they were bought. All have been used.

I may be the only guy left still doing the Keith Clark silk routine using the silks that Rice made especially for the routine. I just got a second set from Ruth (Harold's daughter). I'm still buying Rice silks from Ruth. Soon the inventory will be gone and then it is getting them from collectors, used magic dealers, and folks that just don't want to do silk magic anymore (who would that be?).

That doesn't even start to address the boxes of silks that I have accumulated from other vendors over the years. They seem to last forever if just a little care is taken. About the only silks I have to replace regularly are the little one's that I use in a TT. They get beat to death! But then there is rarely a day that goes by when I don't do the ragged red (or yellow, or purple, or...) rag of death for someone.

Harry -

Please DO NOT praise the use of silk because these young guys will find out that it is one of the best ways to fill a stage with colorful magic and reproduce olde tyme shows that garnered long and loud applause.

Where else could you get an act or sequence that is so light to carry -- produces so much color -- packs so small and can play so big with a minimum of props?

And, not all the potentials of silk have been creatively explored -- even with the Encyclopedia of Silk and older routines and sequences such as you mention (I use Chanin.) If these young, inventive guys start working with it and bring it up to date with a few ideas --- we who have a large investment in silk will have new competitors for stage center.

LOL!!! I let the kids spend their hours learning split fans and card manipulations. One day they will learn that a silk act is easier to learn and has fewer angle problems! Not to mention all the qualities you mentioned. I feel lucky that most youngsters see silk magic as so passé!

Interestingly, just a couple of weeks ago, I was actually asked to perform an "old time night-club magic act" in a one-off community college variety show production. The production tried to put on a post war night club show. We did it in the round (more 270 degrees) and the audience sat at tables and had munchies and sodas.

I kept my bit real simple and did the old Paul Diamond "Symphonette in Silk". Much of that little act is right out of Chanin's book! The act got a rousing response (better than the girls doing the Andrew Sisters and I thought they were good!).

I did three stage shows this weekend using THIS (Improved) AKA Bottle of Wine from Silk. The real inventor is unknown but it was being performed in 1432! Everyone has claimed to invent it since. I was even performing it before some of them were born.

Harry, were you there? It likely came back with Marco Polo.

No joke, don't ever under estimate the value of your silk collection. I wish real estate were as good an investment. That land must be old! Gregg is right.

(If I still did card magic I would probably still have a mortgage. But that got old too! LOL)

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Marco and I used to hang out but I got tired of his trying to out boast me!

You know, I may still have and old instruction sheet from the 1920’s England (forget the dealer) for a version of the THIS prop. It will probably be stored in a box in my warehouse somewhere. It was made with white linen handkerchiefs (about 25 inches if I remember correctly) each with a different color border. I bought it in the 1960’s at an estate sale.

When THIS first came out as “new” and I bought it (from Hank Lee) I felt totally ripped off since it was not a new principle! But I used it and still use one (your improved version right now) for a bottle or special production.

I feel that silks are one of the better investments of magic. With proper care they are durable and will last. I would hate to total up the amount of money I have tied up in silks. I like to use the term "investment" but my wife has become wise to it!

Regan

Luckily, my raw silk price has not gone up yet. But the dye not only has but the blue I use for my master blue and color mixing has been discontinued. I bought all my supplier had but it was not cheap. I will probably have to raise prices because of this also.

I can't think of anything that gives you more bang for the buck than flowers and silks. They are lot of money initially but they easily last for 20 years. That makes a pretty cheap cost in the log haul.

Yes, the wives soon figure out what "investment" means to magicians. It means way too much money that could be spent elsewhere.

Richard

The silk blow effect has been a staple of my act for 20 years. In fact, I think it's my favourite effect to perform, period. It has everything: an interesting premise, suspense, audience participation, and a nice climax.

I’ve always loved the “Silk Blow” since I bought it over 35 years ago. It is a very pretty and magical effect.

While I still have all the props, I must admit that I stopped using it in favor of a more streamlined version (using none of the gimmicks) of the trick. I use the “Mongolian Silks” idea. It is basically the same effect using one simple tube of newspaper and some silks with no gimmicks. In fact, you only have to carry the silks to the venue if you have access to a newspaper to roll into the proper tube.

I do use the colored water and shot glasses as the premise for the white silk to colored silk change. Plus it helps make the trick look bigger and fills the stage.

Harry makes a great point. Filling the stage is the difference between a stage show and closeup or TV magic. Yep! Size counts!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Oh wow!!!

First gold, now silk.

What size silk goes for $6.50 right now?

Dad uses that one really long silk as the finish when doing the kuma tubes.

Can only imagine the price of something like it today.

I can tell you that I made two silks custom for Jody Baron's Kuma Tubes. 22" wide and 60 feet long, I think it was someplace around $800.

Mai-Ling, tell your dad carefully. I don't want him to have relapse. Remember George telling about all the old Blackstone paper in barn and he did not want to seem like a pig. Shortly thereafter it all burned. Think what that stuff would be worth.

Richard

Fasten your seat belts and no smoking please!

The falling value of the US Dollar really means the rising prices of foreign produced goods. Replacement costs for items sold from inventory have gone out the roof. We can't absorb it anymore. Silk appears to be a good investment increasing rather than decreasing in value over time if you start with the good stuff.

Silk Prices are Rising!

We have not adjusted silk prices at DoveLite Silk since 2010. Life is changing! It is decision time.

Effective August, we will be adjusting our prices up 20-25%. We will honor old prices until then. Our inventory is very good but it won't last forever. Even at the new prices, DoveLite silks will still be top quality at a bargain price.

Enjoy your silk magic.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

What a great sales ploy!

Congratulations!

I hope it goes well for you!

LOL!

I'm simply passing the word to my friends.

Bob

PS --- I am the magicians' silk importer.

Bob is doing you a favor (as I am) My Raw Silk prices went up 100% last January. I have not raised the prices accordingly but I may have to inch mine up also.

Feathers have gone up 25% so don't expect me to hold those prices forever either.

This is no sales ploy by Bob or myself. It is unfortunate reality of our current economic value on the world market.

Richard