Magic supplies in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa

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.

Material built to survive inspection from three feet away: sponge balls, cups and balls, chop cups, ring gimmicks and close-up mats. Street and table work is the most forgiving way to get good, because the audience is small enough to restart and honest enough to tell you when it did not land.

Nobody needs an expensive prop to start. The strongest beginner material in the shop costs less than lunch — self-working decks, sponge balls and forcing dice — and all of it still gets used by people who have been performing for twenty years.

Magic shops closed almost everywhere between 2000 and 2015, Des Moines included, and the trade moved online. The gain is range — a marked deck, a chop cup and a set of linking rings in one order. The cost is that you cannot handle anything first, so the listings are written to be read instead: what ships, what it does, what it takes to do it.

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 Des Moines like anywhere else in the country. That covers all of Polk County. Free shipping over $75 anywhere in the United States, Des Moines included.