Dai Vernon is the Elvis of Magic.

If you follow the blogs you'll have seen Magician X's view point on the limited edition Vernon book set that was whored out by L&L publishing. He got a little stick for it, but for all the wrong reasons. Having checked things out for myself I wanted to give you my view points on it.

But first off, to prevent those who don't read past the first few paragraphs from bitching like Bishy's let me say this...

I have the upmost respect for Dai Vernon and his contribution to the magic art. It should be compulsory that magicians (especially card workers) study his work. It is only because of the respect I have for the man that I have a problem with the way L&L are pimping him out like a rent boy and screwing up his legacy.

It's fairly well known that in his later years Vernon had a hard time saying 'no' to anyone. That's why so many books that were put out in those days had forewords by Vernon. Vernon liked the way L&L put his books together (and I agree they did a fine job) and agreed to sign sheets that could be bound into all future editions. I'm sure he spent a bunch of his twilight years signing sheets of paper. (I'm not saying that these first editions weren't actually signed, just that having Vernons signature on something doesn't add too much to the value - there's a lot of signed Vernon stuff out there and I suspect more will be sold in the future when L&L dig it out the basement.)

I don't have a problem with collectors wanting first editions either, but what L&L have done is to pretty much ensure the standard editions of these books aren't about. Check L&L's inventory and you'll only find a couple of Vernon books for sale on their site and that's this one. And the tribute to Nate Liepzig. If you hunt about other magic suppliers you may find some of the others but they're all editions that were put out in the early 90's.

Having dried up the supply of this mans work they then pump out 23 limited edition sets at almost a grand a piece. The ad for this set is no longer on L&L's site but Google still have it cached: Google Cached page

So basically if you didn’t have a set of Vernon books and wanted one you now had to shell out a thousand bucks for the privilage. But as a bonus you did get some other stuff, but this is all utter garbage anyway. Let's take a look;

Dai Vernon’s Notebook – a reproduction of the Professor's personal notebook, written in his own hand - This is probably a bunch of scribbles, and things like 'Jennings owes me a drink' and 'I just boned Larsen again, god she's loose'. One thing is for sure - the ad copy does a good job of not telling us what this really is.

The Seagram’s Mental Trick – a color reproduction of a giveaway trick designed by Mr. Vernon in 1932 - WOW! A reproduction (not original) of something that was designed to be given away as a freebie.

“Fifty Years After” Dai Vernon color photo by Young & Robin – special photo of Vernon taken 50 years after the famous Hal Phyfe photo - A photo worth 25 cents then.

Tally Ho! playing card that belonged to and was actually used by Dai Vernon and a Certificate of Provenance. - One playing card! Who gives a shit if Vernon used it. It's no use to anyone. Maybe you could do Hoodwinked with it.

Letter hand-signed by Bruce Cervon (producer of all the volumes and editor of Volume 4), Stephen Minch (author of Volumes 1, 2 and 3), and Louis Falanga (publisher of all four volumes). - Great a letter signed by three cunts.

Vernon has become magic's Elvis because Louis refuses to let him die. He wants to pretend that his cash cow is still alive and writing new books. Every few years Louis goes down to the basement and digs out a box of old stuff that he got off Vernon before he died and shoves it out. Or finds another way to put out a limited edition and they make a shit load of money from doing so. Sure a little goes to the Vernon estate, but surely the family get royalties or payments from the regular editions that are sold.

If L&L truly cared about the Vernon estate they'd keep the Vernon books available so that new magicians could study and learn from the man. Vernon was concerned enough about his legacy to sit down and shoot loads of video footage before he died which became the Revelations tapes. L&L are just using the Vernon name as a meal ticket. They just pulled in a whopping 23k from selling those limited editions and a fair chunk of that is profit.

Louis should be ashamed of himself, he exploited and old man and now he's raping the mans legacy and keeping important works out of the hands of those who Vernon would have wanted to see it.

MagicianX said it right...

"Where does it end? Why do we need to whore out every single thing the man ever did, every scrap of his life?

Dai Vernon's legacy is in the magic he gave us. We can honor his memory by taking the lessons he gave and using them to improve. That's what really matters, and not having a card he happened to have touched."

MW.

P.S. I believe it's the attitude of placing money and profit over everything else that caused L&L to cut out the footage of Vernon repremanding Ammar on the first volume of revelations when it was released on video tape. Someone said they reinstated the 'lost' footage on the dvds but I've not seen them. If any reader can confirm this, please let me know. If they did put it back in, maybe it was just to help sell the DVD's? "Exclusive missing footage of when Vernon tells Ammar he's a fuckwitt"