I absolutely love this trick, the only reason I gave it a 4 star is because of the price. Yes, it
did take a lot to make this trick what it is, but I think the price could have been lowered. One
thing I found that brought a smile to my face was Jamie actually sent me a video personally thanking
me for purchasing his trick. He actually said my name which meant a lot and actually means he took
the time to record a personal video just for one person.
You deducted a star because you think it is over priced? Are you insane???
You realize that the magic retailer has to take a 30-50% margin of the retail price to stay in business...and even at that level, you see online as well as brick and mortar guys go out of business every year. So that means that if the trick retails for $30, Jamie grosses maybe $15, IF there is NO wholesale distributor e.g., Murphy's also taking a cut.
Out of that $15, he has to pay an inflated rate for small run (less than 10,000) printing of packaging, tickets, materials, etc. He has to have those individual components shipped to him from the various suppliers and then he or someone he pays, has to assemble them into the completed package/effect. Then he has to ship those to the wholesaler or retailer and pay for that shipping. If he's lucky...LUCKY...the guy makes maybe $8 for all of the risk and effort. Remember, he has to buy/print relatively large quantities of the items/materials, without any guarantee that they will sell. Therefore it's very likely he has thousands of dollars tied up in time, materials, and inventory before he knew if it would be any kind of a success. If it doesn't sell, he's out thousands of dollars...and even if it does sell, it may be years before he sells enough to break even...but he has his thousands of dollars tied up during those several years that it may take to sell them all off!
What you've done is complained that a guy that has come up with something clever, spent tens if not hundreds of hours perfecting and routining it, and risked significant amounts of money on, is charging too much...when he's lucky to make $8,000 IF, and it's a big IF, if he sells 1,000 of them! So if he breaks out (there are thousands of tricks invented every year, and maybe 5% sell more than 500 units per year) and sells 500 per year, for all of his effort and shipping and billing and accounting, and taxes etc, the guy maybe makes $4,000? If he lowered the price to $20, he'd be lucky to eke a couple thousand dollars for all of the time, effort, and risk???
Did you think of this effect, routine it, and have the guts to manufacture it? Anything like it? No. Why...because it's difficult. It takes a lot of time, thought, and energy. It takes investment and risk. Try coming up with a few routines and tricks yourself, get them produced and sell them. Then comment if $30 retail is too much. Also, as I'm sure you've heard, it's not always the materials, but the secret and routine that you're paying for, and this routine and technique is extremely well done. If you had an entire show of ten $30 routines as good as this, you'd have one heck of a show for $300...and not many magicians I know have a stage show that they invested $300 or less in for such a high return of entertainment.
A great analogy is the plumber that goes to the doctors house to fix his broken water heater, and he charges the doctor $75 for the 10 minute visit. The doctor asks what was wrong with the hot water heater and the plumber tells him that a bolt had fallen off and been lost. The doctor asked incredulously how he could charge $75 for a new bolt??? The plumber replied that the bolt was only five cents, but the knowledge that the missing bolt was the secret to fixing it, cost $74.95. You're also paying for Jamie's knowledge/experience/secrets.
For a pack small, play big effect that you can perform in front of 20 people or a 1000, $30 is a steal !!! You owe the guy an apology and another star!
Great! Just pricey
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