The price is hot.

Pricing is an exchange of value. This for that. You give me money, I give you something extraordinary in return. So far, so simple. But behind every price there’s a story. And that story is worth telling.

If you’re looking for a new piece of art, you’re spoilt for choice. Three dealers, a similar range, but different prices. Naturally, you’re drawn to the cheapest option. That’s only human. But before you click, ask yourself: what am I really getting? From one, just a brown cardboard box with a note inside. From another, a video explaining every detail of the handling. You get a routine you can perform tomorrow evening. Plus, there’s someone available you can call if you get stuck. Same trick, different story and a different value.

The price of a magic trick in most cases isn’t based on the cost of materials. A turned wooden cube with a secret inside might cost twelve euros to make. However, if a master has designed it and the routine fills seven or eight minutes of your programme with entertainment and astonishment, then the price doesn’t measure the wood. It measures what the trick enables you to do. What you can create with it on stage or at the table. What your audience will feel.

A cabinetmaker who spends three days working on a single prop will never be ‘efficient’. And that is precisely the point. When you buy handcrafted work, you are buying care, experience and the time someone has taken to make that one thing so well. The inefficiency is not a flaw, but the promise.

Sometimes I look at the comments under a new effect and read: “That’s too expensive.” But what does that actually mean? It doesn’t mean the price is objectively too high. It means that most commenters don’t yet recognise the value. Perhaps because the seller has explained it poorly to them. Or because they don’t yet know what this trick can achieve in the right hands. Sometimes, however, it simply means: this isn’t meant for you. Not every trick is suitable for every magician. An honest dealer who tells you this might lose a sale. But they gain your trust. And in our small community, trust is the most enduring currency.

If all other factors were equal, we would of course always choose the cheapest price. But when are all factors ever equal? Two Invisible Decks cost about the same (more or less). One comes with PDF instructions. The other includes a workshop, three routines and a follow-up for advanced users. Which is more expensive? And which is more valuable?

Bargains and special offers have their appeal. They tell a story of their own: now or never, you’re clever, you’ve struck a bargain. That’s not reprehensible, it’s fun. But whoever only ever waits for the sale will end up waiting forever. In doing so, they miss out on the things that are never on special offer because they’re worth their price.

Convenience is underestimated. A retailer who delivers the item with a routine that makes it ready to be reset after a performance, provides a tutorial video with chapters, and sends spare parts along with it, is entitled to charge more. Because they’re giving you time. And time is the only resource that can’t be reclaimed.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: the retailers you choose because they’re the cheapest have no reason to improve. And you, too, have no reason to stay with them if someone else is even cheaper tomorrow. Because you never bought the supplier. You bought the price. And the price knows no loyalty.

The problem with the race to the bottom is that, in the end, someone wins. Then the cheapest supplier on the scene is left standing, with the thinnest margins, the worst advice and props where you can see the cost-cutting. And you’ll be standing there with them.

The best thing a magic shopkeeper can say is: “You pay a little more, but you get more than you paid for.”

That’s not a price tag. It’s a promise. Whether you want to hear it is, of course, up to you.