If you occasionally buy close-up magic tricks or street magic for your own amusement or even if you are a professional magician, then here are some factors to consider before making your next purchase.

Degree of difficulty - A high degree of difficulty means that you need some foundational skills with magic, and most likely knowledge and skills in sleight-of-hand techniques. Most importantly, high difficulty tricks will require lots of practice before you attempt to do the trick in front of a live audience. Lots of practice means days and days of practice, not just a few run throughs. There are some tricks that have such a high degree of difficulty that you may never master them. Keep that in mind so that your expectations and frustration levels are managed.

Angles- When magicians speak of angles, they are referring to where the spectators must be located when you perform your trick so that the trick is not revealed. If everyone must be directly in front of you, then angles are very critical, and your ability to control the spectators become an important part of the trick. If the trick can be done while you are literally surrounded by people, then that probably means no sleight of hand or gimmicks are necessary to do the trick. For the beginning or intermediate magician, it's best to have tricks where angles are not critical, or where wide angles are possible.

Being Left Clean - All magicians like tricks that once performed, the object of the trick can be inspected by spectators with no possible discovery of how the trick is performed, and the magician is not left with any gimmicks in his hand to dispose of. That is what is meant by being "left clean".

Gimmicks - The majority of close-up magic tricks require no gimmicks to make the trick work. If a gimmick is required, it should be easy to dispose of it before the trick is finished. Gimmicks increase the cost of magic tricks and sometimes increase the degree of difficulty.

Set-up and Reset - There are some tricks that have fairly complicated set-ups that must be completed before a magic trick can be performed. If it is an excellent trick that will totally amaze your spectators, then it might be worth it. Usually lengthy set-ups mean that in order to do the trick again, the reset time will also be lengthy. There is a big problem with tricks like this, regardless how amazing they may seem, is that you can't carry them around with you very easily. Impromptu tricks are sometimes the best, and complicated set-ups preclude any hope of it being an impromptu trick.

Pay Off or Effect - If a magic trick has a complicated or lengthy set-up and only produces a "that's an interesting trick" comment, then it has a low payoff and is simply not worth the effort. Similarly there are a lot of great card tricks that have long story lines or extended card handling routines that have low payoffs and low "wow" factors that make them not worth the effort to get to the punch line such as "Now the four jacks came back together again."

Costs - The average online cost for good magic trick will run somewhere between $10 and $50. Look for tricks with video instructions that can be downloaded immediately because they are usually cheaper than DVDs. However, there are several advantages to purchasing DVDs. They are not only permanent in the event your hard drive fails, but they can also be resold on eBay or other sites to allow you to recover some of your learning expense.

Just keep in mind that if you absolutely love a trick, and even though it is difficult and has a complicated setup, go for it anyway. Your motivation will drive you to practice and learn the trick. Besides, there is a lot of satisfaction in knowing the secret of a good trick.