10/12/2025
Three weeks ago today, the Harrogate Society of Magicians was thrilled to welcome back Mark Lee from Merlins of Wakefield to the Pannal Village Hall, to deliver another fantastic magic collectors lecture… this time on the subject of Tenyo’s magic creations (up to the year 2000).
It was very exciting to welcome Mark back into a slightly different room setup for us, which this time included a huge widescreen TV, hooked up to a HD camera, so we could all easily see, in intricate detail, the range of ingenious close up Tenyo miracles that Mark had brought along from his collection to show us.
With Tenyo tricks from as early as the mid seventies, right through the eighties and even up to the late nineties, there was something of interest for everyone that attended, with confused looks and gasps of wonder and awe heard frequently throughout the lecture.
Mark had nicely segmented his lecture into different themes (tricks with coins, then cards, then mind reading and finally miscellaneous wonders) however he also managed to weave in the various stories and history of the brand throughout, including details of its founders and early influences, as well as their key collaborators and suppliers throughout these early decades. All the way through, Mark's expert demonstration skills allowed the tricks to shine brightly, as the powerful effects, ingenious methods and mind boggling explanations kept everyone guessing, even those that had a few Tenyo tricks of their own.
Mark even brought along some fairly well know know and common Tenyo effects (for example Crystal Cleaver, Clean Cut and Invisible Zone) but highlighted some interesting and effective alternative handlings and ideas of how to get the most out of them, turning them from just intriguing mysteries into full close up routines in some cases!
It is fair to say that everyone went away discussing and debating which effect was their favourite and where it might be possible to get hold of them (ebay etc.) and for how much. Some of the effects were so diabolical (Card Changer from 1978, Side Track from 1984 and Hypervision from 1989 for example) that, despite going through the tricks explanation, most of us still went away confused as to how exactly they actually worked, which is always a nice feeling to leave a lecture with!
If you want to see a brief selection of these incredible effects for yourself, you can check out some recorded footage of Mark demonstrating some of his incredible Tenyo effects in the link in the comments.
However, for the full experience, we would highly recommend bringing Mark and one of his collectors' lectures to your magic club, circle or society in the near future. We certainly hope to welcome Mark back to the HSM again soon, perhaps to show us the rest of his Tenyo collection from the year 2000 onwards!
