The Last Piece to the Puzzle

[JohnM]

November 1, 2013

I am very happy and pleased to announce that for all intents and purposes I have completed a Tenyo T-Number Collection.

I say all intents and purposes because there are two that no one is know to have and I do not have these two either. They are T-044 Coin Coaster and T-045 Break-away Fan. I am pretty confident that with the connections and techniques I have developed, I will one day have at least one of these.

The last piece came in yesterday and that was T-089 Spring Flowers which is a rather hard one to get. I have not seen them for sale publically since I started making my collection just under two years ago.

What makes my collection special is that is is almost entirely made up of Mint Sealed English Packages. I also have a second collection of 200 or so opened Tenyo tricks that I play with and perform. There is also a nice selection of professional blue and brown box tricks, the yearly special redemption tricks, modern Japanese only releases, sealed Japanese versions of certain T-numbers, antique Tenyo, Doug Henning Tenyo, Disney Tenyo, novelties, sets, banks, catalogs, magazines and so on.

Another thing that is worth noting is that I created the collection rather quickly (just under two years) and that I paid very good prices for most of the collection. The most expensive piece I bought was Astro Tube for $450.

I store my collection is clear stackable drawers which is great because not only can you see them well, but they are very easy to access.

Spring Flowers.JPG

[gazpratley]

wow john that is brilliant!! you sure must have spent some dough in the last couple o years!

[Jaime C.]

Congrats John What a great achievement
Curious to know, How many items have you collected

[SimonC]

bravo! that's great news. I'm glad you still have a few 'unobtainables', it'd be a shame to lose the thrill of the hunt altogether
it's great to see mint spring flowers, I think it's one of the rare few tenyos you couldn't ever pass of as new if you'd opened it. good find
so what's next? hows this..
hide your mint collection and your performance pieces. take the packaging of your performance pieces, an assortment of plastic toys (smashed) and a few springs/screws etcs.
burn the lot, massive insurance claim, use the money to fund an Indiana jones style worldwide quest.
Indiana Mazza and the coaster of coins.

[David DeTenyo]

Congratulations John! You are one of the few in the world who has all but 2. And that in two years time ... unbelievable!
Do you also have Up-And-Down-Ball? I'd love to know more about that one.
Also, without revealing your 'secrets' of course, how the heck did you manage to find all of them? Did you visit stores? Did you ask for them on fora or phoned and e-mailed magicians?
In other words, how did you make the connections and what techniques did you use?

There are also some of the Tenyo Specials I'd like to know more about, but all in due time

[John B.]

Congratulations John! Fantastic achievement!

[Roberto B.]

Congratulations John!!!

[JohnM]

Congrats John What a great achievement
Curious to know, How many items have you collected

I think there are about 600 Tenyo, maybe more. It is sort of mind boggling how much there is.

[JohnM]

wow john that is brilliant!! you sure must have spent some dough in the last couple o years!

Tens of thousands!

[JohnM]

Do you also have Up-And-Down-Ball? I'd love to know more about that one.
Also, without revealing your 'secrets' of course, how the heck did you manage to find all of them? Did you visit stores? Did you ask for them on fora or phoned and e-mailed magicians?
In other words, how did you make the connections and what techniques did you use?

There are also some of the Tenyo Specials I'd like to know more about, but all in due time

Mostly phone calls to most of the magic shops in the US. Using the right combinations of words to describe what I was looking for and that I was a sincere person. If there was a deal to be made, providing honest information on the value of the item and making a good offer. If there was no deal, following up until there was one. The key was being honest and appreciative. I scored that major collection in March because the seller specifically did not want to sell them to one of my foes. He is one that I called early on and followed up with and he said he wanted to sell it to me because he could tell I was passionate about collecting Tenyo. He hated my foe because he crossed him at a convention and the guy was a SAM officer. I bought one collection of 120 and another of 200 pieces just to get a couple of hard to get ones. That is why I always had so much to sell. I think there is still a lot out there.

The Spring Flowers was a research project where I used information I gathered from the internet to locate a seller who had more than one.

I don't have Up and Down Ball but I have seen it in person. I will PM you with how I think I remember it works.

[SimonC]

That's amazing. It sounds like two years of hard work has paid off. And it's good to see that being genuine and friendly can also pay off, nice guys don't always finish last!
That really is an epic collection you have there.
Well done mate

[David DeTenyo]

Thanks for the info John.
Yes, I know you are a very reliable and honest person and that pays off in the end. You're selling a lot of discontinued stuff for far less they would go on auction sites which you know I'm sure.
I remember your Good Karma post on the magic cafe and all the fuss around it. In the end it is YOU that got a full collection and that will be very satisfying I'm sure. If there's one person who deserves it it is you. So again congratulations. And it's a very good thing we now have someone on the forum who has them all and can give us his honest opinion and advise about them.

Very much looking forward how this forum will go in the future, it will become the place to be when others decide to leave the past behind and join, which I hope one day will happen.

[Per-Aage]

Congratulations John !
Great job, great Collection !!!

[Rob Rand]

John, I'm impressed!I like the kind and sincere way too to obtain a goal, and it's good to read that that pays off!

And I believe Stereo will be very happy with you, you can provide him, together with David, of pictures of rare items!

[Richard W]

Fantastic you got the Spring Flowers you needed. You have got to have the fastest collection time of any Tenyo collector of only 2 years to complete. That will really get to your foes when they get wind of that. Being an honest man willing to help others really does make the difference. It's rare to find someone like you anymore. You have proven in this world of ever growing deceit, liars, con artists, and back stabbers that honesty wins in the end. All the jealous jerks that have tried to bring you down could learn a lesson from the way you conduct business and especially how you are more interested in being a true friend and help others than to get what you want. Making this forum is proof of your passion to help bring together like minded people to have a safe place to gather and share ideas, buy, sell, and trade with confidence that a snake is not waiting to strike. I am sure you will get the last 2 Tenyo T-044 Coin Coaster and T-045 Break-away Fan that nobody else has as you deserve them.

Richard

[Izzy Jay]

Congratulations John on completing your collection!!!
If there's anyone that deserves to see the completion of their Tenyo collection it would be you. As for the remaining 2 that you're missing, something tells me you'll get them before anyone else. So, once again, Congratulations!

I don't know, that Jenzo looks pretty shady to me...
I worked out I was on the cafe for less than 13 hours before I got the boot, never did get an explanation.

Simon, your jokes are most definitely getting better. Keep working at it.

[kellebotond]

Congratulations John,

This is an amazing achievment.

Botond

[BobD]

John, how do you distinguish T-089 Spring Flowers from the others?

[JohnM]

John, how do you distinguish T-089 Spring Flowers from the others?

Bob,

If you look at the picture in the original post you will see what a Spring Flower looks like. I have never seen anything else that looks like it.

There are five paper flowers in the packet in this order: red; white; yellow; pink; blue.

The leaves look to be vinyl with a texture to the material. The leaves are smaller than the flowers. The leaves have a scalloped edge.

There are no instructions in the packet.

As far as Million Flowers are concerned, they are smaller and the leaves are the same size as the flowers and the leaves are not scalloped.

Million Flowers come in the same colors but two of each color, 10 to a box.

[BobD]

Thanks, John.

I have several kinds of spring flowers that I've bought from the estate of a magician who has many Tenyo items. They are probably made by Tenyo too. I will post pictures of them when when I find them.

[BobD]

I've check all the Spring Flowers I got from the estate but none of them matches yours. The ones you have are rare indeed.

[JohnM]

Another major collector had something he thought was T-89 Tenyo Spring Flowers but it looked much different that what I have. It looked more like the common generic ones with the metal ring. Maybe these were sold by Tenyo in the early years before the T-numbers or in the later years in a brown or blue box. Here is what his looked like but he had no marking or instructions to verify it was Tenyo.

photo.jpg

Under the listing for T-89 Stereo shows this picture:
I am not sure where he got the picture from but once again it is a different Spring Flowers than what I have. Later in the listing he shows a T-89 Spring Flowers box with 8 Spring Flowers. The one I have is actually from that lot that was bought on ebay in 2008.

BUT

I am pretty sure that T-89 only looks like what I have and that they were not made for long.

I have seen one other picture of T-89 Spring Flowers that look like the one I have.
On the Tenyoworld site http://www.tenyoworld.co.uk/Tenyogaller ... lowers.jpg which came before Stereo's site.

[JohnM]

I was looking at my Tenyo Catalogs to see if I can find a picture of Spring Flowers.

In the 78 Catalog there are color pictures of all the new releases (Ultra Tube, Card Frame, etc.) but no color picture of Spring Flowers. There is also no color picture of them in the 79 or 80 catalog. But in the 79 and 80 catalogs there is a small black and white ad for them with an illustration. The illustration show that the flower is bigger than the leaf. It also says there are 10 Spring Flowers to a package and now that I look I think there are 10 in my package, two of each of the five colors I mentioned before.

[Elliot W.]

I have one of the sets with the metal ring you have pictured above. They were sold to me as Tenyo and I thought they were based on the picture on S t e r e o 's site. However there were no marking and upon further investigation based on other pictures and asking around I concluded that they were not Tenyo. I would be happy if someone told me I was wrong but for now I would agree that the Tenyo ones have the flowers that are bigger than the leaf.

[JohnM]

Elliot,

What you have might be Spring Flowers from Tenyo but it is probably something other than T-89.

Even what I have has no markings but I was able to do the research to figure out what T-89 is and where to get it.

Maybe you and/or Bob D. can figure out what the others ones are in relation to Tenyo.