Magic supplies in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Michigan

Props that read from the back row: appearing and vanishing canes, flower productions, linking rings in 30cm chrome, silks, flash bags and the larger apparatus. Stage material asks more of your staging than your fingers — the method is usually simple and the presentation is the whole job.

Coin work travels better than anything else: one gimmick in a pocket and whatever change you already have. A plate that lets a borrowed coin fall through the base of a glass, and a coin you can see straight through — both work with the coins in your hand rather than a matched set you have to go and buy. Harder than cards to learn, and considerably stronger when it lands.

Beginners usually buy too much. One self-working deck, one coin gimmick and one routine you can perform without thinking is worth more than a shelf of props you half know. The decks under $15 are not the cheap option — they are what most professionals learned on.

The short answer is by post, and that is not a sales pitch — there is no magic shop left in most American cities. The few that survive are in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York. What is left locally is the party-supply aisle and the fancy-dress rack, which sell plastic props to children and nothing you would perform twice. Ordering is simply how magic is bought now, in Ann Arbor as everywhere else.

The midwest is the historic centre of American magic manufacturing — Abbott's in Colon, Michigan has been making apparatus since 1934, and the Get-Together still draws thousands of magicians every August.

We post to Ann Arbor like anywhere else in the country. That covers all of Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor gets the same terms as everywhere else, with free shipping over $75.