Some of you who haven't been in Magic for more than a decade may
not be familiar with the scandal of "The Braue Notebooks". These
notebooks contained a large amount of historical information on
Card Magic AND a HUGE amount of excellent Card Magic.

Many years ago, a magic publisher claimed he had aquired all the
Braue Notebooks and was going to publish them on a subscription
basis. Ten years after taking hundreds of subscriptions it became
apparent that he did not have what he claimed to have.

The story that unraveled from there turned out to be one of the
largest scandals in the history of magic.

And now on Cogitations you'll learn the true story. For many years
it's been my secret that I played a small but pivotal role in this
story but I've never really told what I know. This week I will.

On Cogitations.

Steven Youell

Very interesting! I'm a new subscriber and will be very interested in this as I am one of the people who got a raw deal. Personally, I never thought they were that great to begin with. I think I received 5 issues over a 4 or 5 year period.

Robert

"Ten years after taking hundreds of subscriptions it became
apparent that he did not have what he claimed to have."

It took ten years for people to catch on! I can not wait to find out why.

Just saw that Steve's article is already up. It's a very entertaining read. I was largely unfamiliar with the so-called "Braue Notebooks"--and what they represented--and I found the article illuminating. It's really not the "slam" on Busby that a lot of people might be expecting. While Busby's behavior is called into question, the article is really more about how a magical artifact of significant historical importance was (thankfully) saved from fading into obscurity and is now preserved for future generations to study and learn from. I think anyone interested in the history of card magic will enjoy it.

Go check it out and see for yourself at http://cogitations.net

I found it very interesting. It was worth the price of the subscription.

Just don't read "The Next Book Syndrome" article by Darwin Ortiz.


Posted: Jul 8, 2006 7:31pm
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I should point out that one reason that it took people ten years to figure it out was that Busby was one of the best at providing reasons for procrastination of anyone I have ever met.

Went to the above mentioned website and nothing was there.

Steven Youell closed down his site some time ago. It was a great site and sadly missed.

Jeff Busby was a very strange individual, who in my opinion had a lousy personality also..

Someday, I will post about my encounters with the legendary Jeff.

Vernon spoke very highly of him in the late seventies and early eighties, and Vernon wasn't prone to suffering fools lightly. This would indicate that something happened between then and now, as the Busby that Vernon knew was a well liked and prolific writer, who produced material that to this day is quite below the radar.

I recently tried to find out if Busby had any copies of "The Secret of the Palmettos" left in his inventory. The subsuquent series of emails and swearings and oaths and forms I recieved from whoever was at the other end went a long way to telling me that perhaps the person who WAS on the other end of these emails wasn't at all aware of how they were coming across.

The presumption that Busby is simply an A.sH.le would in my estimation be drastically oversimplifying the actual situation.

Am I the only one who recently received an email from the famous Jeff Busby in the last couple weeks? I was shocked! Very nice email with some pictures.

Steve

Based on my experience trying to find out about some of Busby's books, I'd be very interestd in knowing exactly WHAT he does sell, and who buys it.

Does anybody here have any recent experience actually completeing a purchase from Busby?

Maybe there's some gems to be had if a guy is just willing to jump through all the hoops and forms and swearings and signings required in order to just get a direct email response to a specific email question.

Silverking, did you ever find out if the book was still available from Jeff? We recently restocked copies from a distributor, but they are the book only, not with the decks of cards (though I understand the decks are not as difficult to obtain in Canada as they are in the US).

I wrote asking for information on the book, and began to receive a series of bizzare emails that were loaded with HTML images.
Those emails included forms of great length and detail that I had to "sign" and return to the sender (Busby).

I filled out the first couple and then another series came with even more "demands" as to how a person would commit to interacting with Jeff Busby Magic.

At that point I stopped filling them out and returning them. The emails from Jeff Busby Magic stopped coming to me when I stopped returning their "forms".

In that entire discourse, not a single one of my questions was ever answered, and I don't believe that any of the emails I received were from an actual person, but were simply boilerplate emails sent to anybody bothering to inquire of Busby's shop.

I have no idea at what point a person actually gets a catalog or a list of inventory, or at what point a real person actually starts answering questions.
It was probably the strangest experience I've had online looking for magic or books on magic.

As for the decks of Palmettos, drop me a line Dick.....I've got a couple of hundred brand spanking new decks of Texan Palmettos that I've been obsessively collecting over the years, maybe we could do a trade......a case of Palmettos (13 to a box) for a book or two?!

(P.S. to card collectors, Please don't ask me to sell you any Palmettos, I only trade them for magical items and books that are even harder for me to find, but that I absolutely gotta' have!)

Silverking, I'll send you a private email in a day or two. I'm sure we can work something out! Thanks.
Dick

Just recieved a notice from TARR, Busby tried earlier this year to kill the PF registration process on us.

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regse......74618664

A real pain in the ass right to the end.

Jake,
I just don't understand why Busby continues. If the D--n name meant so much to him, we did he not do justice to it? I worked to rebuild the Marshall name but gave it up in a settlement with an ex partner who destroyed the name.

Bottom line is the people buy from the person not the past name. If you treat people fairly, make a good product, the rest will take care of itself.

Hang in there and stay the high road. I am in your corner and have your back!
Richard