MAGIC SHOP - Daytona Magic, Inc.

by Irv Cook

We are at our current location for quite a number of years, beautiful downtown Daytona Beach, and right across from the Halifax River. When we moved down here to our own building we already were manufacturing hundreds of items and our sewn items were made by a lady in her home. I would give her the supplies and she would bring me back the finished items.

Being the trusting soul that I am, I never counted the stuff. I would take her word when she would bring me 75 change bags. I didn’t count the number of handles that my carpenter gave her nor the amount of velvet I gave her. I believed in her honesty and trusted her.

One day, a man from a small magic store in a town 20 miles from Daytona came into our new location and told me he was going out of business. He asked if I would like to buy his remaining stock. I told him that if the price was right I would be glad to buy good clean merchandise. The next day he brought me three very large cartons of mostly my merchandise that my seamstress made for me. Even the instructions were my instructions poorly photo-copied. In those days copiers did not give you crisp copies like they do today.  I asked him where he got the merchandise and he described this little old lady, gave me her name and told me they were overruns of a big NY magic shop. I told him the truth and he wanted to give me the merchandise, but I realized he was a victim like me and we came to a financial agreement. So here I was without a seamstress and out, quite a few bucks. I needed to find a new seamstress because we made at the time about 50 sewn items.

I was walking down the street to lunch one day and noticed a small alteration shop. After lunch I went back to the store, got an egg bag and brought it into the alteration shop. That is where I met Nettie, a Cuban lady who was sitting behind her sewing machine working on a Choir Robe. I introduced myself and showed her the egg bag. I asked her if she could duplicate this bag if I got her the fabric. She said she had similar fabric and would make one for my approval. In less than ten minutes she was at my store with the original bag I gave her and an exact duplicate. I asked her if she could make me fifty of those bags and we agreed on a price.

For the first year I brought fabric and original pieces of all the items I made. Her work was impeccable and I kept her so busy that she did not have time for alterations. We had increased our sewn items to well over 100, making vests, straight jackets and even a line of feather flowers. She closed her shop and moved all her equipment, which I have since bought to the second floor of our building.

Today we make over 200 items that have at least some sewn aspect or are feather flowers. Nettie is still going strong and has proven to be an honest hard worker who is an important part of Daytona Magic.

Awhile back our local paper did a piece on Daytona Magic and she is in the piece. Sit back and watch the video. It’s very enjoyable.