The Genii Forum

I have, like most magicians, a large number of tricks I no longer perform. Is there a website or something similar dedicated for buying/selling used magic? I don't want to put our precious tricks and secrets on Ebay or some other general-purposed market.

There is a group on Facebook called "Surplus Magic Exchange" dedicated to just this purpose.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/surplusmagicexchange/?ref=bookmarks

what he said...

The Magic Cafe has a selling area but it is only for members who have at least 50 qualified posts.

Pete,
Is that an endorsement of the group, or just informational? I like that it's a closed group, and the fact that Facebook is so intrusive gives me hope that people will realize that it's not a good way to try and scam people.

I endorse it... for what it's worth.

I like that I can look at the sellers profile to verify they actually exist and have been around for awhile.

I've seen some people trying to abuse the system but the moderators needle them out. I have never had an issue with a seller.

Years ago I had to be vetted prior to joining (I sent pictures of me performing and a list of actively performing friends as reference). I'm not sure if they continue to maintain that practice as a lot of vendors seem to keep popping up and 'not reading the rules'.

Overall, it is better than any other selling site... that is a non-auction environment.

You can sell your items here. Make sure you follow the rules of the Marketplace or else your posts will be deleted.

Bill Duncan wrote:Pete, Is that an endorsement of the group, or just informational?

Bill,

Well, I can't say I'm endorsing the entire group, since it's just a loose collection of people. But I've bought and sold items through it without any trouble, and I don't hear of people having problems.

The moderators are pretty vigilant. This is good for commerce, but in my opinion, not good for the sense of community. One time someone was looking for, IIRC, four sponges in the shape of the letter F. (I presume they were headed to Buffalo.) Someone else posted that they had an entire sponge alphabet for sale. Trying to be helpful, I posted that you could probably turn the E, the B, and the P into Fs without much trouble. My post was taken down because I wasn't directly offering to buy the item, or some other stupid-sounding (to me) reason.

This happens pretty regularly, that people try to post something helpful and it gets removed for violating some rule. So it sometimes doesn't seem like the most friendly place, because many of the friendly posts get removed, or people just learn not to make them.

Still, if I am looking to buy or sell something used, that's where I would go.

SME has a forum called SME Talk. That is where the moderators point discussions (even helpful ones) to prevent people from bringing their sale to the front page constantly. The best way around it if you don't want to join the SME Talk (I find it too dry) is to send the person a PM and just post "I sent you a PM" on their post. Facebook filtering will send unfriends PM to an 'other' tab where you will never see (no notification) unless you click on the other tab.

I use that option a lot to see if they are willing to ship to an APO/FPO and to group purchases with a bid.

Thanks guys.

I have a few items I'm thinking of selling, and don't really do this sort of thing often.

Strangely, I can't get the link to work---did they move?

You have to be logged in to Facebook for it to open...

Is that the probelm? If not try using the group name in a search on Facebook.