Magic supplies in Lowell, Middlesex County, Massachusetts

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.

If you are starting, the honest advice is to buy three things and work them until they are invisible, rather than twenty and perform none of them. A Svengali deck, a set of sponge balls and a decent close-up mat will carry you further in six months than a drawer of apparatus.

There are three places to buy magic tricks in Lowell: a toy or party shop, a general marketplace, or a magic shop that sells nothing else. The first sells props that break, the second rarely says whether instructions are included, and the third is what this is. Nothing is listed here without saying what arrives and what it is for.

The northeast has the densest concentration of magic clubs in the country, and New York in particular has a long close-up tradition running from Dai Vernon's circle through to the sessions still happening in the back of coffee shops.

We post to Lowell like anywhere else in the country. That covers all of Middlesex County. Free shipping over $75 anywhere in the United States, Lowell included.