MAGIC SHOP - Daytona Magic, Inc.

By Irv Cook

It all started in 1966 in of all places New Jersey. Well, I guess we weren’t always called Daytona Magic. I was very young working for a company called Simplex Time Recorder as a customer engineer. Harry was a nine year old school kid. We had never met. Magic was my hobby and a pretty profitable side line. I did birthday parities, scout shows, school shows and even an occasional stage show. Come Christmas time I did at least 5 shows a week. It was a good side line making me enough money to drive a new car every few years. I also always had a few bucks in my pocket to see shows in New York and enjoy a life style higher than I would be able to on my regular job salary alone.

Things were going very good at Simplex for me. I had a very industrial territory in Philadelphia where I serviced time equipment in factories and schools. It was a hands on job that was challenging and interesting. Then my house of cards collapsed, or should I say my house of time clocks collapsed. The person I replaced, a few years before, as an engineer came back from the war and wanted his old job back. He deserved it, as he was an unsung hero, as were so many people who served in Vietnam. So what was Simplex to do with me? I was a good worker!

They promoted me into sales, in New Jersey. I hated my job. My job was no longer challenging, as a matter of fact it was mundane. I had to canvas place after place in South Jersey to see if I could get them to buy new time equipment. Sometimes I had leads because the customer called the company, but most of the day was spent by canvassing cold.

I was frustrated with my job and one day while working a lead in Atlantic City, I stopped and visited a friend of mine who had a souvenir shop on the Steel Pier. I had a few tricks that I invented and wondered if he would let me sell them at his shop on weekends. He told me that the Pier had a magician who had an exclusive on magic. I watched the guy and he pitched two tricks, the Svengali Deck and the Adams Money Maker. I counted and he sold 24 units in one half hour for $2.00 a unit. Wow! That was a lot of money in 1966. He was open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I figured he was a rich man. I said to myself, I can do that! All I need is a place to do it.

There was a large Farmer’s Market outside of Philadelphia. I don’t know why they called it a Farmer’s market. It had only one fruit and vegetable place, but it had everything else. I rented a small space for the weekend. I called my friend Bob Little where I had been buying magic and asked him if he would sell me some stuff wholesale. Bob worked out of his basement in Hatboro, Pa and did magic conventions. He sold me a couple dozen Svengali decks and a few tricks he made for somewhat wholesale prices and I was in business.

It was July 4th weekend 1966. I opened “The Magic Shop’ (unique name) and sold out the first weekend everything I bought from Bob. I took a few days off from work, went to NYC, looked up magic in the Manhattan phone book and made contacts with three companies to buy magic wholesale, Robbins, Tannen’s and Franco American Novelty Co. I spent my life savings and I was really in the magic business. I still bought from Bob items he made but my real suppliers were the three mentioned companies.

The only day my new business interfered with my Simplex job was Friday afternoon as the Farmer’s Mart was only open Wednesday and Thursday Night, Friday 12 to 11 PM, Saturday and Sunday. About a week or two after I opened, I’m pitching a card trick to a customer at about 4 PM on Friday afternoon and who stops in front of my booth? You guessed it, my boss from Simplex. Before I could make up a real good excuse as to why I was selling card tricks on Company time, I found myself being flown to Gardner, Massachusetts, the home office of Simplex. I thought wow, they are flying me to the home office to fire me?

They were, maybe still are a great company. They didn’t fire me. They told me I had a future with them and could someday be an executive. They also told me that their sales engineers could not be selling magic tricks, especially on Friday afternoon. They told me to think it over and make a decision. I guess you know what decision I made. In 1966 I was making about $225.00 a week with Simplex. I gave it up to make about $125.00 a week in the magic business, but I was happy.

About two weeks after I opened a little kid comes into the store and asks me, “When does the magic show start, mister?” My answer was, “You got any money kid, Ill show you a trick?” The kid was Harry and he didn’t have any money, but I showed him a trick anyway. He said he would be back with enough money to buy the trick, which was the Penny Block. Five minutes later he returned with the fifty-nine cents plus tax and he purchased the trick. I taught him how it worked and he played with it over and over again. About an hour later he was still in the store, watching me pitch magic when the UPS driver brought in two cartons of merchandise from New York.

I began checking in the items and he asked if he could help. I asked him if he lived around the mart and he said no, but that he was going to have to be there the entire day because his father worked in the furniture store and he came to work with him. I immediately realized who he was because he looked just like his dad, who was a friend of mine that I ate lunch with. I told him to tell his dad he was at the Magic Shop so he wouldn’t worry and he could help me put the two cartons away. “Wow! I got a job he shouted!” He left and came back as fast as the Road Runner in the cartoons.

When he got back we agreed on another trick for helping and the rest is history. Here we are almost 43 years later and Harry and I are partners in Daytona Magic. We moved to Florida in 1976 right after we became partners. Harry stayed with my family for almost two years. My kids grew up calling him Uncle Harry. He then met his wonderful wife Sandy, they got married and had a family. His kid grew up calling me Pop-Pop and later when she got older just Pops.

It has been a great run these past 43 years – 33 in Florida. We are a real Magic Shop in the spirit of Kanter’s of Philadelphia or the old Tannen’s in New York. We don’t carry gifts, toys or Halloween costumes. Just, magic, clown supplies and jokes. Although we sell on the internet at www.daytonamagic.com we have a real brick and mortar store at 136 South Beach Street in beautiful downtown Daytona Beach, FL. We have over 8000 different items in our store. We manufacture hundreds of different effects including but not only most coin tricks, Jim Zee boxes and finely crafted wooden items. Stop by and say hello if you are in the area. You will think you have gone back in time 50 years and are seeing something that almost does not exist.