Private Investigator: Who Is Mr Blonde

Magicians buy magic tricks from magic shops like Vanishing Inc. Most of the time, they’re buying closely guarded magic secrets — sometimes, they’re buying special magic props that allow them to perform impossible magic tricks.

An anonymous magic creator recently released a magic wallet product to the market. They did so under the pseudonym ‘Mr Blonde.’ The magic creator went all-in on their secret identity. They claimed to be a part of an underground collective of three magicians named ‘The Collective.’ Mr Blonde is the figurehead and founder of the secretive team.

His marketing embraced the fact that they use a secret identity to release magic products. His bio reads: ‘Mr Blonde is someone you know. Someone you have heard of. Someone you have watched. He is a well-known and highly established English performer who wishes to remain anonymous.’

Note: the spelling of Blonde/Blond is inconsistent everywhere, so it’s not just this article that switches between the two.

Their first and potentially final (more on this later) magic release is a special peek wallet named ‘The Peak.’ Yes, he’s very creative with his naming skills. The wallet allows magicians to secretly peek inside to gather information perhaps written on a business card by a spectator.

The roll-out, launch, and eventual roll-back of Mr Blonde have intrigued me. The story involves some famous magicians, magic industry drama, product failures, The Jerx (one of the most infamous anonymous magicians), and a private investigator (because I hired one).

You should note that on the 21st of October, I contacted Mr Blonde directly. I let him know I was writing this article, and I asked if he wanted to provide any commentary on his first product release, its aftermath, Murphy’s Magic, and the concept of anonymity within the magic world.

Mr Blonde did not respond to my email.

I waited three weeks to publish this article.

Part 1. The Peak

Mr Blonde’s first product release was released worldwide via Murphy’s Magic. Murphy’s is the world’s largest magic wholesaler. Creators and publishers pitch products to their buyers, Kathy Carini and Patrick Wolford.

The power that Carini and Wolford hold to shape the magic industry cannot be understated. Any excellent or bad product you see on the shelves or web pages of your favourite magic stores was once greenlit, ordered, and sometimes even commissioned and funded by Carini or Patrick at Murphy’s Magic.

I’ve heard that Murphy’s pressures some dealers to list all of their product catalogues in a sort of all-or-nothing approach. This means magic shops have little to no say on which products they sell — giving them limited ability to quality control for themselves. It would be impossible for small shops to stock their entire catalogue, so the majority of the products are essentially ordered and forwarded on demand.

Some local magic shops signal this on their website, with lines on product pages like ‘ships from our warehouse - allow 1-2 days for dispatch.’ Ordering such a product will trigger it to be shipped from Murphy’s Magic in California to the UK shop before getting forwarded to you.

Murphy’s likely placed a large pre-order for Mr Blonde’s first release on the back of its raving quotes from big-name magicians. I imagine a big order commitment was needed to fund the first production batch of a product like this. They may have placed an order with Mr Blonde for 1,000-3,000 units, and without doing so the product would never have been funded and exist today.

Before a public release, Murphy’s initiates a pre-sale for its dealers. During this period, dealers (magic shops) get to stock up on a product before it gets released to everyday magician customers. If you hear about products like Craig Petty’s Quantum Deck selling out on pre-sale pre-sale, this means that Murphy’s sold out of the product before it was released to the public — the dealers bought it all.

Dealers do not need to stock up on a product before release, but they can do so on over-hyped magic releases to ensure they have enough to sell to their customers if Murphy’s runs out of stock at the warehouse.

Mr Blonde’s The Peak was first teased via a teaser trailer containing nothing but clips of big-name magicians presumably reacting to the product over Facetime. Trusted, successful magicians gave big, excited reactions — names like Dee Christopher, Noel Qualter, Marc Paul, Christian Grace, Chris Rawlins, The Jerx (more on this later), John Archer, Tom Elderfield, Marc Kerstein, Doug McKenzie, and Andy Nyman.

In The Peak’s teaser trailer, you have no idea to what the big-name magicians are reacting. I’m guessing this was intended to create hype about what the product could have been. But doing so created this bizarre distrust as you do not know if their reaction is fair or if they’re reacting to a performance or a method reveal.

It often feels like the trusted magicians were asked to pretend to respond to something — it often doesn’t feel like they’re actually watching anything or on a Facetime call of some sort. It was odd.

The product was marketed as an ‘Industry First’ — in fact, the first line of its ad copy said so. The teaser trailer caught people’s attention for good and bad reasons. Magicians were intrigued by the big-name reactions, and some were upset they did not get to see the product.

The response on the day from Murphy’s to those who were upset by the teaser’s format was that the trailer was ‘fun on socials,’ and they responded directly to the criticism, saying ‘understand your perspective. It is a great effect: high quality and versatile ...you can perform surrounded.’

And whilst within the trailer, you could argue that viewers are consciously aware that the trusted magic names are not seeing the product in real life — this is not made clear in the ad copy, which uses written quotes attributed to the trusted names in the trailer one could assume were written by people who had held the product.

Part 2. The Bottom

When the full trailer dropped — many magicians were upset. It turned out that the product was not nearly as much of an ‘industry first’ as we were led to believe. The trailer was less than one minute long, provided no product specifications and did not include a performance.

Without seeing a performance, it’s hard to tell how well the product performs under real-life scrutiny. Plus, with a mentalism tool like this, it isn’t easy to know how you would use it. Usually, with magic tools, a producer will at least give you their best performance application so you get a sense of how you can use it.

We never got to see what the trusted magicians were reacting to. I had hoped the full trailer would include the side of the video call or perhaps even the recorded video the big names were asked to react to.

The trailer does reveal the secret method of the product. The wallet, designed to look like a minimalist metal card wallet, has a hidden layer similar to a privacy screen. This special layer means that the viewer (ideally the magician) can see directly through to a rectangular section inside the wallet when tilted.

In the trailer, the hands of Mr Blonde pick up the wallet and slowly tilt it towards the camera. Gradually, the privacy filter activates due to the angle, and the drawing on the card inside the wallet slowly becomes more legible until the trailer cuts away. I’m not sure why they cut away at this point, but it made me concerned that that was as legible as it gets.

The method is nothing new.

It has been used in multiple successful peak wallet products. There are brilliant front pocket leather wallets and even phone case wallets that employ the same special privacy screen layer. Heck, someone even released it built into a credit card — no wallet needed. The only thing new about this wallet is the style — it’s metal and looks like one of the popular Ridge wallets you always see on Facebook.

And then the product started getting into the hands of buyers. There were quality control issues — some reported their filters did not work as well as others, and some said theirs didn’t work in low light. Most alarmingly, Americans reported that their business cards did not actually fit inside their wallets. I found this alarming because I, as I’m sure Mr Blond did too, thought business card sizes were universal.

One Ahead’s content producer Nathan Wilson said he didn’t hate it when his Peak wallet arrived, but then the screen got scratched soon after. I asked One Ahead readers for their thoughts after verifying they received the product.

One buyer said, ‘Bought it. Disappointed. Mainly sucked in due to the testimonies but unlikely to ever use it even in bright light. Probably won’t support the collective again as I feel cheated.’

Another said, ‘I am keeping mine as a reminder to not be a dumbass and purchase things without waiting for a thorough review first.’

Another reads, ‘My concern is the quotes of the famous magicians who praised this trick and made me buy it for 99 dollars. It is absolutely impossible that they made these reviews with this wallet in their hands.’

It’s tough to release a magic product. I do feel for all involved who perhaps had to overhype a product to guarantee they would make their money back on what I imagine was a costly first batch. Nonetheless, misrepresenting a product and releasing something that doesn’t live up to the hype you create, all while hiding behind a pseudonym, has consequences.

Part 3. The Aftermath

PropDog, the British magic shop, were the first I heard to discontinue the product. They are often a trusted voice of authority and are almost always brutally honest in the live review shows they share on Facebook.

All Things Magic were next, taking aim at the product itself and bypassing its questionable marketing efforts. The statement from their owner reads, ‘I wanted to like this, I REALLY wanted to like this, but man, I just can’t see the info that’s supposed to be staring you in the face with this device. For $100, I just can’t recommend this to our All Things Magic friends.’

This was notable, as Luke Dancy - the owner of All Things Magic, had only recently left his role as the face of Murphy’s Magic. It would have been not long ago when he would have presumably represented the product positively in his weekly social media content at Murphy’s.

So what was Murphy’s Magic doing during this drama? Interestingly, Murphy’s held their ground for a while before it all became too much. If you search today, you’ll see the trailer has vanished from Murphy’s socials.

The product has also vanished from their wholesale listings — it’s gone. I’ve never heard of that happening before. I’m unable to find any public statement from Murphy’s.

The only place I can really find any details about The Peak is on Magic World’s magic shop website. It appears Magic World still has 146 in stock! 146! They must have bought into the hype and overordered during the dealer pre-sale. I wonder if they cannot return these to Murphy’s?

And what of the trusted magicians who are featured in the trailer? Most have not commented on what’s happened. I presume they want nothing to do with it. One of them has commented, and it’s the only anonymous one from the group…

The Jerx is an online magic blog run by an anonymous magician using the pen name Andy. Magicians love this blog. Plenty of big-names like Derren Brown are known to read it. His original quote for The Peak was cleverly crafted:

“Damn. I’m impressed. That looks pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal. I can’t wait to get my hands on one, so I can try it out in the real world.”– Andy, The Jerx

In hindsight, it almost feels like it was written with the help of a lawyer, with the possibility the product turned out shit in mind. Complimenting it while also making it clear he hadn’t actually got his hands on one, your honour. Why lend your name and positive quote to a product you haven’t held? At least the magicians in the video can say they reacted fairly in a live setting, and their quote was taken out of context. Andy sat there and typed his testimonial out.

When the product did turn out to be not that good, readers of The Jerx questioned why Andy would provide such a positive quote — he responded:

‘There’s no real story behind it. I don’t hype other people’s products. I don’t even hype my own products. I was sent a video of the wallet in action, and my response was [original quote].’

I would argue that adding your quote to a trailer saying, ‘Dam, I’m impressed. That looks pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal,’ counts as adding hype to other people’s products. But who am I to say such a thing without my own pseudonym?

Andy goes on to say:

‘And you’ll have no problem discerning when I like a product. I’m not subtle. I literally write pages every month about my favorite releases in the newsletter. You can get the straight dope there.’

Weirdly, Andy has not said anything - good or bad - about The Peak since receiving the product. To my mind, the original quote he gave is misleading, if not perfectly crafted. I can’t imagine he dishes out quotes like that to anyone who sends him product videos.

To go off on a slight tangent. I’m reminded of a cleverly crafted promo by Larry David in his commercial for the FTX crypto platform released at the start of this year. The gag is that Larry David doesn’t think FTX has a future, saying ‘naaaaah, I don’t think so, and I’m never wrong about this stuff - never.’ The commercial ends with the tagline, ‘Don’t be like Larry. Don’t miss out on Crypto.’ FTX failed this week and wiped $150 billion from the crypto market cap. I would LOVE to be Larry David rn, and I’d love to know how much he got paid for the ad.

Anyway.

What is it about magicians, especially magicians hiding behind anonymity, that makes them incapable of accountability?

Why do Murphy’s never take responsibility for ordering lots of products and forcing them upon us and dealers when presumably, someone at their warehouse must have looked at them in real life?

Why can’t The Jerx say, “shit — you guys, sorry if my quote was used to mislead you, I’ll try not to give quotes out to products I’ve never held again,” instead of calling readers who were misled, like the one he’s responding to, idiots for not dissecting his quote to the fullest extent?

Why can’t Mr Blonde post something about what’s happened or take any kind of accountability for the way the release was handled?

Sure, you’re all not doing anything legally wrong, but maybe some of it’s a little morally questionable, and could it help to have some transparency, eh?

Soon after asking my readers about their experience with the product, I received an anonymous tip from an anonymous email:

Brilliant, another anonymous person entered the chat.

Maybe all of this nonsense is due to the fact that these people hide behind pen names? And why? Why are so many magicians hiding behind pen names? Why are there so many secret meme accounts? Would any of them act anything like the way they do if their identities were public?

Who knows.

—

I hired a private investigator to tell me who Mr Blonde is.

I’ll be honest.

When I came up with the idea to hire a private investigator, I thought of it as clickbait and clickbait alone. That’s why I only paid them $65 to spend just fifteen minutes analysing Mr Blonde’s marketing materials and website.

My thinking was that if I did that and paid them, then I could still say to my readers that I really did pay a private investigator. Sure, they probably wouldn’t find anything, but it would be a good story.

The only thing is they did find something.

After fifteen mins, the private investigator sent over two names.

Shit.

The investigator used publicly available data connected to the marketing images’ IPTC metadata and their Squarespace site to provide me with the name of one mentalist and another magician/photographer — both British.

Hilarious that they found two names so quickly.

Not funny for me, though, who was happy to start typing up a fun clickbait article and is now faced with deciding whether I should or shouldn’t include these two names.

The problem with anonymity is it makes it easier for people to act in ways they would otherwise not (yes, I’ve watched the Derren Brown TV special about it, in which an anonymous audience almost kill a man).

Perhaps if the creator of this product had their own name printed big and bold across the product, the marketing would have been approached differently, and so would the quality control.

But anonymity has real perks.

The problem with being a public face in the magic industry is that magicians, in general, are unusual people. They’re not always the best customers —especially online. Almost every creator/producer I know, including myself, has insane stories of doxing, blackmail, harassment and abuse levelled towards them online by magicians. It’s weird.

I’ve made strides before to keep a low profile within the industry. There are genuine benefits that lead magicians to become anonymous within the industry. The tricky thing is holding yourself accountable once you’re there.

So look, if Mr Blonde wants to be anonymous — I’ll leave them be. Even if he has confused my proofreader to no end with the different spelling between the words ‘peek’ and ‘peak.’

I have a feeling that somewhere in a warehouse, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of faulty metal peek wallets and that there is currently a big debate about who is going to have to pay for them.