Happy New Year from the Garden of England

[Chris Wahlers]

Hi, happy new year to you all! I’m Chris, I'm 39 years old, and I currently live and work in Kent.

My first magic trick was a gift from my aunt about 35 years ago - it was a clear plastic box in which you placed a red wooden ball through which ran two yellow pieces of string. One loop of string was tied around the box, and then when the ends of the two pieces of string were pulled, the wooden ball and clear plastic box were released from the string.

Shortly after that, I was gifted my first Davenports catalogue from that same aunt, and I saved up for various (what I now realise were) Tenyo tricks: Crystal Tube (T-24), Super Phanto Block (T-74), Bare Bones (T-133) and others. Unfortunately, I only discovered their provenance long after I’d passed them on to others, dismissing them as “cheap plastic tat”… while I focussed on my new passion for ‘proper’ card magic...

And now I’ve come full circle. I’m old enough and ugly enough to fully embrace that “cheap plastic tat” and enjoy it for both the history, thought and ingenuity that has gone into each piece, and for the enjoyment they bring to me and my young family.

Look forward to chatting with you, and reading through some of the excellent material hidden away in these pages.

Cheers,
Chris

[KirkW]

Welcome aboard Chris.

You will love it here. Lots of creative minds and great friendly conversation.

I can’t remember the first magic trick I ever owned but I do remember the first one I ever saw that started my interest in magic. I was in kindergarten and one of my classmates brought in the old wooden coin slide where you can make a penny or nickel appear or disappear inside the slide. That started a fascination with magic that continues to this day (over 50 years).

I too put aside those plastic magic “toys” when I was very young and focused heavily on sleigh of hand with cards, coins, etc. But now, I mainly collect older close-up magic and anything Tenyo and Tenyo like...what I call table top illusions.

[Rob Rand]

Welcome Chris!

Great to have another British, well-articulated member on our forum!

Have fun!

[JohnM]

Welcome to the forum Chris and Happy New Year to you and your lovely family.

[Chris Wahlers]

Thanks for the warm welcome, chaps. Lovely to be here, and hope I can contribute something useful once I get bedded in!

See you around,
Chris

[David DeTenyo]

Welcome Chris, sorry for not welcoming you earlier by the way! I too came in contact with Tenyo without realizing it - my very first Tenyo trick was Credit Slasher, bought in France for what I believe was about 10 EURO (it was on sale, if not I would have never bought it) - I thought it was pretty expensive for a plastic 'toy' at that time . I ripped open the package and started playing. I loved it. Several years later I realized there was a company called 'Tenyo', after watching Roberto Breyer's video's on YT