Todd Lassen????

[Tom Gilbert]

There's reports that Todd Lassen passed on the 18th. Anyone hear anything else?

[kkelly]

yes, i heard that he suffered a massive heart attack on saturday and passed away on sunday.

[Joe Naud]

I just got this via email:
Hi everyone,

It is with great sorrow to inform you guys with the following message.

On April 18th, Todd passed away at around 5:30 pm mountain eastern time. He suffered from a massive heart attack and the doctors tried putting some stents in, but one of his arteries was completely blocked. He was sent to a bigger hospital with plans to undergo open-heart surgery. But they found that his livers and kidneys were failing so they had to instead put him on dialysis. After that, the doctors informed us there was very limited options to treat Todd's condition and that one of the remaining options was if he got a heart transplant. However, the doctors stated that there were low chances of survival with this procedure as well. At this point, we were not ready to let go of Todd's life, but we knew that he wouldn't have wanted to go through with any type of procedure. In the end, he was comfortable and was able to leave the world peacefully and painlessly. We are not ready to let go of his existence from our lives and are truly heartbroken from this loss. We hope that his influence and impact within the magic community carries on as one of the greatest coin gaff makers of all time.

Sincerely his daughters,

Lily and Qing Qing

[Michael Rubinstein]

And just like that, another blow to the coin magic community. Todd was an incredible craftsman, and delighted so many with his expertise and creativity.

[Steve Mills]

A good person that lived with great passion. May we all hope that the same can be said about us.

Adios Todd!

[chetday]

More sad news. I'm glad I have one of Todd's Walking Liberty expanded shell sets to remember him by. I'm mainly obsessed with cards, but I do a couple of tricks with the above set of coins. I hate reading all these comments announcing another loss from our world of magic. I sure hope Todd's daughters find some comfort in good memories about their dad.

[Bob Farmer]

I have his card gaffing jig, which is really a wonderful piece of equipment. A true craftsman.

[erdnasephile]

As a friendly FYI just in case anyone is interested: Mr. Lassen's daughter Lily is fighting her own health battle with breast cancer.

In 2020, Mr. Lassen mentioned that a GoFundMe page was set up for her. It is still accepting donations.

Although I did not know him personally, Mr. Lassen frequently mentioned Lily and if one is so moved to remember him in this way, I'm certain he would have heartily approved.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lily039s-bat ... dium=email

(Full props and credit to Paul Kruse for brining this to my attention)

[The Chris Randall]

In my 20s i hung with a motley crew of magicians who shaped my life Lee Asher, Aaron Fisher, Joey Burton, Randy Malcolm, and Todd Lassen. We partied like crazy and would jam on magic till we passed out then did it all over again... It was some of the best times i ever had. Todd was always very sweet to me and loved my passion for books. One day i showed him my version of Troy Hoosers extroydinary and he snatched the coins out of my hands. He knew his own work and said it was the first shell he made for another magician.... I replied Brian Gillis ! He screamed yes how did you know ! I told him about a tv show i worked on where i met Brian and showed him some coin magic and later at dinner he gifted me the coins. Todds jaw dropped to the ground as he looked at the first coin set he made for another magician. Me and Todd spent many hung over mornings at conventions forcing each other to lectures we wanted to see Chad Long was one of our favorites. I will miss my friend and I am saddened by this news. Todd as we all know was a master craftsman and just a fun person to be around.

[Tom Gilbert]

Thanks for posting that link erdnasephile!