Magic Faker of the Month - Simon Crack

Simon Crack seems to be the UK's answer to Dave J Castle (that is, if his WHOIS listing is correct): Administrative Contact:
    Crack, Simon 
    17 Forester Close Pinewood
    Ipswich, Suffolk_England IP8 3TF
    UK
    01473604014

He runs a series of exposure sites where he tells anyone and everyone how magic tricks are done.

And his philosophy about exposing magic?

Isn't exposing magic tricks wrong? Well yes and no. I believe if you are giving away the secret just for the sake of it, then yes. For example you show someone a trick then immediately give away the secret - what was the point of that? I'm not here just to crudely expose magic, but to teach people who have an interest in the art.

He adds

It is not intended to be a 'Magic Tricks Exposed' or 'Magic Tricks Revealed' type of site - it's true that I am giving away free Street Magic secrets but I am trusting you as a fellow Magician to keep them between you and me, ok? ;-)

He then offers the secrets off a whole series of marketed effects, created by people like Anders Moden, Sean Fields, plus - just like good old Dave J Castle, he offers "tutorial videos" on effects like Dynamic Coins, Self Folding Bill, Hummer Card.

He's more than happy to reveal other people's secrets, but a little shy about being "revealed" himself. He doesn't speak on the videos, and he doesn't show his face (instead offering us the traditional "magic torso")

However, I was able to locate on video where he does reveal more of himself that he may have intended.

Anti Gravity Water Magic Trick - For more amazing video clips, click here

Like David J he has videos all over the web on Revver, Metacafe, Vimeo and YouTube.

I have written to him, as have many others. Why he does this I have no idea, but he does offer this little insight on his main page:

P.P.S Want to learn a magic trick that lets you build a successful and profitable website like mine? Learn the secret HERE.

So, it appears that the real purpose of his site is to get people to visit it, then (somehow) the more visitors the more money he makes. What better way to attract visitors than reveal other people's secrets.

He has, no surprise, Dave J Castle's site in his web links, but he also has the following magic shops in his links as well. Do they endorse his exposure business? I'll write to them and find out.

PAID SITES:

PubTricks.com "Digital Magic Downloads for Purchase"

MagicTricks.co.uk "The UK's leading online magic tricks store!"

WorldMagicShop.co.uk "The largest magic shop in the midlands!"

MagicCityUSA.com "Magic tricks and supplies for magicians of all ages and skill levels. At MagicCity USA we offer Amazing Magic,
Fast Shipping and a Free Trick with every purchase!"

And here's a surprise discovery. One of Simon's other free links is to a site called www.xploremagic.com A quick WHOIS search reveals we have our own Australian equivalent based in Albury.

Domain Name: XPLOREMAGIC.COM

Administrative Contact:
Morgenstein, Jacob
Stedman St.
Albury, NSW 2640
AU
+61 02604133***

(Interestingly enough, there is no Stedman St in Albury, only a Stedman Cr and it happens to be 1 minutes walk from where I used to live in Albury. The White Pages also shows no listing for any Morgenstein in Albury at all).

Comments

[Tim Ellis]

And a response from Magic City:

Hello Tim:

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your inquiry; but I have been extraordinarily busy the last few weeks. I checked the link you sent me and to answer your question, NO I have not paid them for the link, so I do not know why I am listed under the PAID SITES section of their website. I have never paid them a cent, nor would I ever pay any site that reveals the secrets of magic for a link.

Magically Yours,

Timothy Doyon

President & Head Magician

MagicCity USA

[Tim Ellis]

Magic Tricks .co.uk replied:

"Dear Mr Ellis,

Thank you for your email. We checked out the website and link you sent us and see that they have a link to our site under the paid sites sections. We were neither aware of the link nor endorse their website and we certainly did NOT pay for the link. We don't pay for ANY advertising except for a small banner on www.magicweek.co.uk . We have found that we don't to pay for advertising as we are very high on the UK search rankings and have a very good and loyal client base.

We have no reason to endorse a site that exposes some of the tricks that we sell the originals for, eg/ Healed and Sealed was one that popped up on first glance. When we first got your email I thought that this site must be one of our affiliates on our affiliate program as we have over 6500 affiliates however when clicking through on the link it appears to be just a normal hyperlink to our site which makes me think that the owners of this site have added us and other successfully high ranking magic sites like pubtricks.com as a means to increase their google rankings which is a common thing to do as the search engines would view their site as a source of magic knowledge.

We usually don't feel that we need to justify our business marketing models to anybody that emails us with queries, we put a lot of work into our site and feel we have are very ethical in the products that we sell. As far as I am aware I'm not sure about the legal aspects of getting a link removed apart from the fact that they mention that we pay them which we don't. So we will send them an email off to that effect and see what happens. Should they change the title to something like... 'sites we like' then I don't think there is a lot we will be able to do.

Kind regards,

Charlotte Marie (Director)"

[Tim Ellis]

World Magic Shop replied:

"Hiya Tim

We definitely do not endorse this site and 101% do not pay for advertising on it. thank you for bringing it to our attention. I'm just about to send them an email.

Costas"

[Brendan Croft]

Ahhhh, the old "masked magician" defence, how handy.

[Tim Ellis]

Jacob, from xploremagic.com, wrote back to me justifying the exposure of magic on his website:

Hi Tim,

The purpose of this website is to provide information about magic,
including: Magic Tutorial, Perfomance, Documentary, Fun, Community, and more.

There are three reasons why this site has magic tutorial section:
Education purpose, Appreciation of skill, and Innovation. Firstly, new magicians will need some place to learn, develop skills, and hopefully they can innovate new original tricks. Secondly, exposure enables spectators to fully appreciate the range of different skills involved in performing different magic tricks. Finally, exposure of old tricks will forces magicians to innovate new ones and keeps the field moving.
So we think that the magic tutorial section is very important for the development of magic arts.

Surely our website can reach thousands of people each day, but from our web statistic we can assure you that at the end of day the only people coming to our site are people who eagerly want to learn magic tricks not people who want to dispel magic tricks.

Best regards,
Jacob

[Tim Ellis]

PubTricks.com responded:

Hello,

You will see the link they have to me as an ?id=xxxx in the HTML which means they have joined as an affiliate. We have not asked them to add the link, they have added to earn commission from our sales.

We would like to see no sites that offer secrets for free but is is impossible to control. The only way we can see to compete is to offer better and new material as often as possible.

Regards,

David - www.pubtricks.com