National Magic Company

The name "National Magic" belonged to an old and well respected manufacturer of magic equipment back in the 1930 and 40s. I don't know the history of it very well so anyone out there who is up to speed on this could please add some comments and help me get this right. At some point it became the brand name of Joe Berg, the magic dealer in Hollywood who was such a big part of our lives when I was a little kid. My Dad loved to hang out at Berg's Magic Studio. When he first arrived in Hollywood he worked as a demonstrator/counterman at the Abbot's store in Hollywood with Louis St. Pierre who later formed Hollywood Magic just a few doors away from Berg's studio. So he knew what magicians liked when they came into a store. At some point in the early 1980s, Berg's closed it's doors and sold the name rights and much of their inventory to my father. He used the name for his manufacturing business and when he went to conventions and set up shop in the dealer's room, he referred to his company as National Magic.

He had hundreds of parlor props and decks of cards and notes on effects for sale. He would take a selection with him to a convention, pay for the smallest space available and then have the widest selection of items in the showroom. He of course could not resist making trades either, so as often as he would come back with cash, he would also come back with more material for his collection.

I believe that the photos below, represent the stock he took to a local convention. It was a small selection but it had a nice variety of common items and hard to find materials. He also took with him a selection of posters from the Thurston Show that he acquired, and sold them. I will have another post on posters themselves, down the road a bit.

Today, the name of the "National Magic Company" is owned by my Dad's friend Gary Frank. I don't know that he ever uses it, but I do know that he carries on the tradition of performers like my dad, working at entertaining others and finding new ways to keep the art of magic alive. If I'm not mistaken, my Dad first met Gary at Joe Bergs, which should come as no surprise since magicians have been establishing connections in magic shops since the days of Merlin.